


Fragile

by musingsofvenus



Series: Eclipse AU [2]
Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Imprinting (Twilight), Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Rewrite, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Mild Sexual Content, Multi, Mutual Pining, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, POV Alternating, Pack Bonding, Slow Burn, Underage Drinking, Unresolved Emotional Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:15:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 90,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27844351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musingsofvenus/pseuds/musingsofvenus
Summary: fragile: (of a person) not strong or sturdy; delicate and vulnerable.Bella leaves for Italy, and Jacob tries to cope with the emotional aftermath. Concurrently, Paul's high school sweetheart comes home after two years for a funeral. Neither are sure how much more they can take when Imprinting comes into the picture.Eclipse canon divergent
Relationships: Edward Cullen/Bella Swan, Jacob Black & Bella Swan, Jacob Black & Leah Clearwater, Jacob Black & Original Female Character(s), Jacob Black/Original Female Character(s), Jared Cameron/Kim Connweller, Paul Lahote/Original Female Character(s), Sam Uley/Emily Young
Series: Eclipse AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2176488
Comments: 36
Kudos: 57





	1. Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> The rewrite of this fic was born because of the pandemic. If you've read the original version on FFN, you'll notice the plot is completely different but the same characters (that I made up) remain. We're starting in New Moon and working our way through Eclipse, loosely following canon events BUT told through the perspective our friends in La Push... with some darker twists. Some of the pack members are aged up- particularly, Jacob is 18 and Paul is 20.
> 
> Some dialogue in this chapter is pulled directly from chapter(s) 16 and 18 of New Moon.

He's never fast enough. He never had enough time.

There Bella was, standing on the cliff with her arms spread eagle- in the middle of a freaking storm- about to jump. Trees and bushes whip by Jacob as he forces his legs to pump faster, _go faster dammit_ \- he _needs_ to reach her in time.

She's mumbling to herself- some nonsense he doesn't understand the context of and he's not entirely sure he _wants_ to.

All he can do is watch. The whole pack is watching the drama unfold through his eyes. Even Leah and Seth, still reeling from their father's heart attack and their terrifying transformation, are distracted by the scene playing out in front of him.

He pushes up on his front legs and phases with the momentum, never breaking his stride as he continues to run on two legs. He screams and screams and _screams_.

No amount of screaming will make her turn around.

Another bellow rips his throat to shreds. "No! Bella, no!"

He never stood a chance.

Bella flexes her arms straight above her head, settles into a crouch, and jumps. And _screams_. All the way down.

Jacob is screaming, too.

He scrabbles to the edge of the cliff with wide, terrified eyes and looks for any signs of Bella.

"C'mon, _c'mon_ ," he mumbles to himself. His fingers tap anxiously against the rocks.

She surfaces with a gasp and treads water, laughing.

Jacob nearly collapses with relief. "Bell-"

A huge wave snags her back under the water. The current batters her tiny form, and her limbs are too weak to do anything about it.

Jacob curses and jumps after her.

The water is freezing, even to him, but the currents are nothing against his strength. He immediately spots Bella where she's slowly sinking and grabs her by the waist. The swim back to the shore is only a few minutes.

But Bella's _not_ breathing. His hands freeze in panic.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no-

"Jacob! Get it together!" Sam barks at him. He didn't even hear him approach, but it's the verbal spanking he needed.

He's not sure if it's the rain, lingering seawater, or tears that he wipes from his face. Freaking out isn't going to help. He knows what he needs to do.

He turns Bella on her side and proceeds to pound at her back.

Water gushes out of her mouth and nose in torrents. Still, no signs of life.

"Breathe!" Riddled with anxiety, he continues to beat the water out of her lungs. He's begging her to just _live_. "Breathe, Bella! C'mon!"

Another torrent of water expels from her mouth. He goes for another hit, but Bella gasps. It's a ragged, weak sound, but she's breathing. Finally.

"Bella?" Jacob asks, tapping her cheek. "Bells, honey, can you hear me?"

No response.

"How long has she been unconscious?" Sam asks.

"I don't know." He really had no idea. Anxiousness curls in his throat. "A few minutes? It didn't take long to tow her to the beach."

"She's breathing. She'll come around. We should get her out of the cold, though. I don't like the color she's turning..."

Sam is right. Bella's lips are blue, and her skin is stark white. Even worse than how she looked when she came down to the rez for the first time a few weeks prior.

"You think it's okay to move her?" Jacob asks quietly.

Sam grimaces. "She didn't hurt her back or anything when she fell?"

"I don't know," Jacob moans miserably. He could scream.

"Jake…?"

Traitor tears fall down his face at Bella's croak. He crouches closer, right in her face, taking in every minute detail of her face.

"Oh my God, Bella! Are you okay? Can you hear me? Do you hurt anywhere?"

"J-Just m-my throat," she stutters. Her voice is shot. It's music to his ears.

"Let's get you out of here, then," Jacob murmurs, lifting her off the ground. She's a limp noodle in his arms.

"You got her?" Sam calls, already jogging backwards.

"Yeah, I'll take it from here. Get back to the hospital. I'll join you later. Thanks, Sam."

"How did you find me?" she asks in a chainsmoker voice.

"I was nearby," he replies as he jogs up the hill toward his home. "I saw you in the distance getting ready to jump. I was almost right behind you when you screamed..." He shuddered. "Didn't you hear me screaming at you, Bella? What were you thinking?"

"I saw him," she rasps.

"Who, Bella?"

"E-Edward. I saw him."

Jacob stares at her and begins to wonder for the first time if she's as crazy as the rest of the pack thinks she is.

He just shakes his head. "Terrible timing," he mutters under his breath.

"You said… hospital. Before, to Sam. Is someone hurt? Did she fight you?"

"No. It's Harry Clearwater. Harry had a heart attack this morning."

"Harry?" Bella blinks rapidly. "Oh, no! Does Charlie know?"

"Yeah. He's over there, too, with my dad."

"Is Harry going to be okay?"

Jacob purses his lips. "It's bad."

Bella holds her head in her hands as they pass through the front door. "What can I do?"

"You can stay here." Jacob deposits her onto his beat up couch. "I mean it- right here. I'll get you some dry clothes."

He's back in seconds with a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt with his school's logo on it. Bella's reflexes are slow, and she doesn't catch them when she's hit square in the face. She pulls the clothes from her face slowly, with an indignant scowl on her face. It almost makes Jacob smile.

Almost.

"These will be huge on you, but it's the best I've got. I'll, er, step outside so you can change."

"Don't go anywhere. I'm too tired to move yet. Just stay with me."

Jacob sits on the floor, his back against the couch. He leans his head on the cushion next to Bella's slumped form and yawns. "Guess I could rest for a minute..."

His eyes close.

"NO!"

His eyes shoot open at Bella's shriek. He's suddenly sitting in _her_ living room, trembling. The air is saturated with the sickeningly sweet scent of vampire, like cyanide. Bella's face is beet red. The little vampire girl is a statue in the corner of the room.

He never should've answered that phone call.

"How dare he!" Bella continues to scream. She jumps to her feet, and Jacob rises with her. He subconsciously puts himself between her and the tiny leech.

"Oh, get out of the way, Jacob!" She elbows her way around his trembling body and begs, "What do we do? Can't we call him? Can Carlisle?"

Pixie girl shakes her head. "He abandoned his phone in the trash."

"You said before we had to hurry. Hurry how? Let's do it, whatever it is!"

He watches Bella and the leech argue. Bella gets more animated with each volley thrown at her. Anytime someone she loves is in any kind of trouble, she's always ready to do something about it, consequences be damned. He _knows_. He _understands_. And yet...

"I'm only afraid of getting you killed," the leech says.

Bella scoffs. "I almost get myself killed on a daily basis!"

She runs to the kitchen, frantically looking for something to write Charlie a goodbye note with. Stupidly, Jacob holds out a pen and paper pad to her. _Helping_ her rush to her death like the idiot he is.

"Thanks," she mumbles, pulling the cap off with her teeth. She leaves a chicken scratch message on the counter.

It'll kill Charlie when he gets home. It's killing Jacob _now_.

"Don't go," he begs. He doesn't know why he bothers. He _knows_ Bella. When her mind is made up, there's no going back. She's going no matter what he says.

Bella doesn't waste her breath arguing with him. She gives him a brief glance that says it all.

 _I'm sorry. You know I have to do this_ , she says.

"No, you don't," he whispers.

Bella closes her eyes. "Please, please, _please_ take care of Charlie."

She hurries after the bloodsucker, stumbling past the threshold of the front door. He follows right behind her.

Funnily enough, she spins around again to lock the door. In any other situation, Jacob would've laughed. Of all the things to worry about right now, locking the door is so trivial.

One foot hovers over the porch steps, and Jacob catches her arm again. He has to try.

"Please, Bella. I'm begging. I can't protect you there. Let the vamp go by herself. You can figure something else out."

"Jake, I _have_ to-"

"You don't, though. You really don't. It's different this time. It's not like when you left with your mom for a couple years. I could take that. Now you could… _die_. How could I say goodbye, knowing that?" he wheezes. "You could stay here. You could stay alive. For Charlie. For me. _We're_ your real family. Not _them_. Isn't that enough? _Aren't we enough_?"

The stupid Mercedes revs impatiently. Tears fly down Bella's face as she shakes her head at him. There's no time to mince words.

"Don't die, Bella," he chokes out. "Don't go. Don't. Please. He's not worth it. If you die, I'll die too. I just know it. So please, _please_ -"

Bella sobs once, and throws her arms around his waist. He does the same, resting his head on top of hers.

He won't let her go. _He can't let her go._

"You're a good friend to me, Jake. The very best," she whispers. "I'm sorry. I love you."

"I love me, too," he replies automatically. It was an old joke between them; an ingrained call-and-response since diaper days.

Bella pushes against his chest. He can barely move his arms and head away from her- his limbs suddenly weigh a thousand pounds. She untangles herself from him and runs across the lawn.

Jacob watches his best friend drive off with the tiny vampire. To her death.

His mouth opens to let out a terrible, inhuman wail-

And sits up in bed.

He stares in shock at the band posters littering his bedroom walls.

Over the sound of white noise whooshing in his ears, he can make out the shrill ring of the landline. It's the new hit soundtrack played on repeat in his tiny home since Bella returned from Italy.

_Ring, ring, ring._

It's Bella. It's always Bella.

His father's wheelchair squeaks by his bedroom door.

"D'you want me to answer?" Billy asks.

Jacob flops onto his back and throws an arm over his eyes.

"No," he growls.

He was relieved when he got word from Charlie that she returned home safe and sound a few days ago. His mood plummeted as soon as he heard _the Cullens_ returned with her like nothing happened. He couldn't believe it. After everything she went through…

Jacob rolls over and hides his face (and his scream) in his pillow.

He can't talk to her yet. He's too angry. It's too painful.

_Ring, ring, ring._

_Bella, Bella, Bella._

* * *

Bella keeps calling.

Whenever Jacob isn't assigned to patrol, he spends most of his free time hiding among the cliffs just to avoid the phone.

Away from prying eyes, he would sit on the cliffs unbothered for hours whenever the weather gives him an opportunity to go unnoticed. With the help of the rain and fog, no one notices him resting on the edge of the highest cliff among the bluffs.

The massive russet wolf could easily be mistaken for a pile of dried pine needles if anyone bothered to hazard a glance towards the cliffs; he is nearly invisible, blending in with the natural colors of the earth.

His bright amber eyes stare across the sea, taking in every minute movement of the waves with his heightened vision.

Every few minutes, a great huff would escape his muzzle. Pain lances through him as his thoughts, once again, turn to Bella.

He spent days thinking about it, but he couldn't fathom _why_ she would ever let any of those leeches back into her life.

When Bella drove down to La Push with a banged up pair of motorcycles, _months_ after the break up, Jacob lit up like a match.

As soon as she stepped out of the Chevy he grabbed her up in a hug, and a wave of nostalgia rushed through him. And the way she grinned at him- it was just like old times with the mudpies again.

He was too excited to see Bella again after so long, until he actually got a good look at her.

She was pale, a sickly pale that was so different from her natural fair skin she had when he last saw her at prom a year ago.

Her face was gaunt, and her eyes darted everywhere, never settling on one object for too long. She clutched at her middle, like she was barely holding herself together, and would double over and gasp for air when she thought he wouldn't notice.

But Jacob always noticed. And it was all because of that disgusting leech.

_Edward Cullen._

If Jacob could spit in his wolf form, he would.

Just when he thought they were pulling each other out of their own hells and piecing each other back together into their modified versions of normal, he gets tossed right back into the rings of fire as soon as she leaves.

He's burning again. Alone.

And while he is begrudgingly happy that Bella emerged out of zombie mode unscathed, he can't help but feel bitter about it.

Why couldn't he get something like that? Where was his reverse Uno card that would magically make it all better?

His spring break had been effectively ruined by vampires.

Jacob snorts. Who is he kidding?

He hasn't attended school consistently for _weeks_.

He can't bother keeping up the facade that he was a regular human, that he didn't transform into a horrifying monster. It was even harder now that he didn't have Bella around to keep him steady.

Why bother with human interaction? He didn't have time for it anyway. Every second he spent around his classmates was just putting them in more danger.

He was supposed to be spending all of his time _protecting_ them. From a distance, always in the shadows.

He can't fight off vampires and sit in Algebra class at the same time. Vampire hunting isn't included on the list of acceptable reasons to qualify for an excused absence from school.

He informally withdrew from high school, but never told Bella because he _knew_ he would never hear the end of it from her. The principal, however, was hot on his heels.

She was a tall, pewter haired woman with knowing eyes and a kind smile. Principal Silver, who insisted that all the students simply call her Diana, was a stubborn woman who refused to allow him to drop out.

When his absence went on for more than a week straight, she showed up to his house with a giant tote bag over her shoulder to reprimand his father.

Billy took it with his usual stoic face.

* * *

_Diana straightened from her angry stance when she noticed Jacob warily step out of his bedroom._

_"So help me God, you're graduating this year, even if I have to drag you to the finish line myself!"_

_Jacob's eyes darted between his father's before he settled on Diana._

_"I can't," he murmured. She didn't know what she was asking. She didn't realize how much danger he would put other students in if he went back to school. One burst of anger and he could easily expose himself as a wolf, possibly injuring innocents in the process. It was impossible._

_"She knows, Jacob," Billy said._

_Jacob stared at them both with his mouth agape._

_Diana spun back to his father. "You and those kooky councilmen need to come up with a better way to onboard these boys. Or at least give some kind of warning. He looks like a lost puppy!"_

_"He's a grown man," Billy groused._

_" He is a child!" she snapped at him in Quileute._

_They both stared each other down until Billy finally looked away with a twist of his lips._

_"What do you propose then?" he asked._

_"Modified self-study." She dropped the tote bag onto the table with a heavy thud. Jacob could see stacks of papers and textbooks through the peak of the opening._

_"Diana…"_

_"Don't 'Diana' me!" She turned to Jacob with a warm smile and gestured at the papers. "Jacob, these are things from your locker and assignments that you have this week. You don't have to come to school, but you have to complete these and return them to me."_

_Jacob eyed her with disbelief. "That's it?"_

_Diana nodded encouragingly. "Come to my house at the end of the week with those finished assignments and I'll give you the next set." She paused with an apologetic grimace. "Sometimes you'll have to come by to take a test though. Can't get around those."_

_"But what about Embry?"_

_"I have Embry doing the same thing. He didn't tell you? You guys can work on this stuff together." She winked at him. "Try not to cheat though, okay?"_

_"I… Thank you," Jacob said sincerely._

_Diana waved him off. "Don't thank me for doing my job."_

_This was more than he could've ever hoped for. He stood stock still, overwhelmed and filled with some kind of emotion that he couldn't name._

_He wasn't sure what his expression was, but it must've been something terrible because Diana was quick to scurry over and pull him into a hug. He was suddenly reminded of his late mother._

_"Everything's gonna be just fine," she crooned in his ear. "We're here to help."_

_"Thanks," he mumbled. She pulled back and cupped his face with her hands._

_" You look just like Ephraim," she murmured, swiping her thumbs across the apples of his cheeks. She dropped her hands with a little laugh to herself and looked down with a shake of her head._

_"My great-grandfather?"_

_"The very one," she whispered mysteriously. She cleared her throat and offered him another sunny smile. "I'll see you Sunday?"_

_"Yes."_

_Diana nodded, satisfied. She made her way to their front door and stilled with her hand the doorknob. She turned to Billy one last time and pointed an angry finger at him._

_"Support. System," she insisted with a growl. Billy barely had time to open his mouth to retort before she slipped out with a slam of the mesh door._

* * *

He managed to keep up his schoolwork for a month and a half before Diana suddenly died mere days after Bella's return and Harry's funeral.

An aneurism, he was told. He only found out through the pack because of his refusal to and answer any phone calls.

Without someone on the inside that could upkeep his and Embry's special arrangements, Jacob is, once again, the dropout.

Typical occurrence for a high school senior turned beast because of the magic in his blood.

He never put much thought into his plans post high school. He thought he had more time.

He certainly has no time _now_.

His future is decided for him, and he's been assigned a life of unending servitude. And it _sucks_.

His spring break isn't ruined. His _life_ is ruined. Forever.

A faint howling in the distance causes his ears to perk up. Sam was politely ignoring his brooding this whole time, but it was time to get to work.

Other streams of consciousness pop into his mind, one by one, as the rest of the pack shifts to answer Sam's call.

They pick up on his brooding thoughts and groan. He can hear a collective, " _Jake, c'mon. Not this again,_ " from his brothers.

He growls in annoyance. There is _never_ any privacy. He wishes he could get _one fucking second_ with his own thoughts.

He's the only one who still actively dwells on their predicament. The others feign nonchalance about being wolves when they're together, trying to siphon positivity from each other despite the mandate to be inhuman beasts for the unforeseeable future, but they're all still just as bitter and hopeless as him. He just doesn't bother hiding it.

Jacob stands up on all fours and shakes out his fur. He releases another quiet huff before turning toward the direction of the howl.

He can see through the others' eyes and where they are gathering; he's not too far away.

As he makes his way through the underbrush, he passes a large one story home nestled in a small clearing. The darkness and fog makes the glow of the porch lights look ethereal and welcoming, like something out of a fairytale.

Jacob stiffens when he realizes it's the house Diana used to live in. He didn't realize how close he was to her property.

His ears twitch again as he picks up the sound of an approaching car.

A restored Mustang drives up the obscured turnoff and rolls to a stop in front of the house. Jacob can hear Embry making sounds of appreciation.

The door on the driver's side opens and out steps a tall, copper skinned woman in a pair of sunglasses. Her most striking feature is her tousled garnet red hair that curled just past her shoulders. She pulls her sunglasses up to the crown of her head and glances around the area.

"Holy shit," she murmurs slowly. The woman is a younger, near carbon-copy of Diana.

Jacob can pick up on one particular member of the pack who couldn't catch himself from showing more interest than the rest of the hive.

" _Dude, isn't that your ex? Kendra, right_?" he asks.

The entire pack can feel Paul flinch at the mention of her name.

Finally, someone else had problems the pack could hone their concentration on and leave Jacob alone.

Another woman steps out from the car. She's wearing a parka with the hood pulled over her head. She's only slightly shorter than Kendra, who makes her way around the car to sling her arm around the smaller woman's shoulders.

And something in Jacob _shivers_.

"Can you believe it, Bailey?" Kendra says. "It's almost like… nothing changed."

"But it has," Bailey pipes up. She sniffs. "And now we have to go to a funeral."

He moves to get a closer look, suddenly overcome with an itch he needs to scratch- he needs to see- when another howl sounds off, this time an Order.

" _ **Come** , Jacob. I won't repeat myself_," he hears Sam command.

His ears flatten against his skull at the weight of Sam's authoritative tone, and he _hates_ how those words make his entire thoughts deviate to obey. His joints lock, and no matter how much he fights to move forward, the invisible force of the Order holds him in place. It compels him to turn around. He trembles for a few seconds before he finally complies and begins running in the opposite direction of the house.

" _Looks like her granddaughters made it for the funeral_ ," Jacob muses to himself.

" _Of course they would, she was their whole world,_ " Paul spits harshly. " _That woman raised them all by herself._ "

Everyone in the thought-link sees a brief flash of a younger version of Kendra with longer, pitch black hair.

_She stood with a smile on her face, eyes glittering with mirth. A broad hand reached up, brushing a thumb against her reddening cheek-_

The thought is quickly smothered, but not before they all get an aftertaste of the terrible longing behind the memory. It's a memory the pack has witnessed before. No one dares to call him out on it.

" _Just bring your ass over here, Jacob_ ," Paul snaps at him.

Jacob bristles at Paul's tone but continues with his stride. He would put in his hours for patrol, and then go back to his favorite spot to brood again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm also uploading this here since FFN decided to not work anymore... Let me know what you think~


	2. Funeral

La Push was still reeling from Harry Clearwater's funeral that took place just two weeks ago. Harry was a well known and respected tribal member on the rez, and his death still left the small community shaken.

While his death is devastating for the people who knew the Clearwaters well, Paul isn't one of those people. He didn't know any of the Clearwaters intimately, so he couldn't find it within himself to feel anything other than faint sympathy for those who knew him.

Today, however, the words on the memorial program threaten to singe the skin off his palms.

_Diana Silver (Sunrise: July 10, 1945 - Sunset: March 27, 2006)_

An aneurism had stolen another major tribal member from the community too young. Her death was crushing to him, to say the least.

Diana had been a steady presence in his life ever since he first met Kendra in the sixth grade. She treated him like a son, took care of him and loved him in a way that his father was never capable of. She was one of the few who didn't look at him like he was a lost cause.

It was the unnerving glint in her eyes whenever she gazed at him that left him wonderstruck and deeply exposed. Like she could see right through him, flaying him down to his soul with a single glance. He never experienced anything like it before.

It was the same look that Kendra gave him when they first met. And it drew him in.

It was that very look he craved with desperation and sought after for the past two years. One brief encounter with Diana was almost the perfect hit; it was never enough for Paul, but he needed that teaser. Without it, he's absolutely sure he would fall apart at the seams.

She was the closest proxy to Kendra he could get… and now he wasn't sure if he would get to experience that feeling ever again.

All he feels now is a hollow, yawning emptiness… The irritation is audible in his low growl, and several heads a few rows ahead turn his way and quickly whip back around when he curls his lip in a sneer.

Everyone gives him ("Diana's lost boy," he'd heard someone whisper) a wide berth; no one dares to sit in the same row as him. Even without his status as one of Sam's early cult members, his temper is the stuff of legends on the rez.

He sticks out like a sore thumb as the hulking man squeezed in a tiny black suit. He knows he does, despite sitting in the back corner of the room. No one else from the pack was allowed to attend the funeral in an attempt to stave off any brazen reactions that could disturb the service.

And while he certainly isn't being confronted by anyone, several women in the room simply leer and bat their lashes at him. Some of them he recognizes from one-night stands. Others are hopefuls who'd likely heard of his reputation in the sheets and want him for themselves.

Paul couldn't even get _Kendra_ to look at him properly, and the attention that he _is_ getting from other women doesn't hold the same appeal.

Normally he'd purr under the attention and sweet talk prospects to bring home later. Instead, he fidgets with the knot of his tie and looks away with a grimace. He just wants _her_.

"And now we'll hear a eulogy from Diana's eldest granddaughter, Kendra."

Paul sits up straighter when he hears her name.

Kendra is wearing sunglasses despite being indoors. The black dress she's wearing looks like velvet, and it makes him ache to touch her… just to feel how soft it is against her skin.

She clears her throat in the mic.

"I guess I'll start by thanking everyone who showed up today. It's nice to see how much she's loved. Sometimes I forget that other people love her just as much as I do. She would definitely get a kick out of all this attention." She pauses to chuckle and pulls a paper out of her pocket. "I wrote all my thoughts down so I wouldn't get off track…"

Paul is immediately lulled by the sound of her voice, and his eyes flutter to half mast. The way her lips move as she speaks is entrancing. The lips that used to whisper his name with such affection… the same ones he used to kiss so, so often.

He could sit and listen to her speak for hours, without care, as the rest of the world falls away around him. Her voice is like a soothing balm to his nerves, and he subconsciously relaxes his posture.

Her voice is low and raspy, and it's always been music to his ears. He basks in it like a man craving water in the desert, just like he would when she used to tell him stories in Quileute and force him to learn and speak in the same tongue until he was just as fluent as her.

Kendra pauses her eulogy to quickly swipe a thumb under her eye, and for a brief second Paul can _feel_ her gaze on him as if he were sitting under a spotlight. He straightens in his seat.

He can't see her eyes through her sunglasses, but he can see her hands clench on the podium.

She clears her throat again, and the strange, prickling feeling eases up.

"Anyway, I, uh, don't want to hog all the time so I'll wrap with a quote she told me that I think she would want us all to think about when we're sad about her," She blows out a sharp breath, and her words curl in Quileute. "The dead never truly die. They simply change form."

More people get up to speak, but he does not pay attention to their words. He keeps his gaze fixed on Kendra as she steps away from the podium and returns to her seat in the front. She tuts at her little sister.

Bailey is sobbing hysterically. Her cheeks are a mess of inky trails of black mascara running down to her chin, and Kendra does her best to wipe it away with a tissue as they whisper to each other.

"He really showed up," Kendra says in a trembling voice.

Bailey's eyes flicker around the room and briefly settle on his. Paul gives her a curt nod, and her eyes drop back to her lap.

"Of course he would come," Bailey mutters. "Ma raised him too."

The sisters were orphaned at a young age and Diana gracefully filled in the role of their sole guardian. They both looked to her as a mother figure and referred to her as such.

"Right, because he's always had such a _great_ track record."

Paul winces. Since his first phase two years ago he had to shut nearly everyone from his past out of his new life. It is undoubtedly what caused the breakdown of their relationship.

But Bailey, always quick to defend him, argues, "But he's here. He showed up and that's what counts."

"I don't know what you see in him."

"You _do_ ," Bailey insists. She briefly glances at Paul again. "It's the same thing you saw when you first met him. And Ma. You know _exactly_ what I see, you liar."

Kendra turns away from her sister with a huff.

The transition to the burial is a quick affair. The mourners shuffle outside to the burial site, the funeral director says a quick prayer, and one by one, roses and soil are tossed over the casket.

Paul steers clear, preferring to keep his distance from the body. He stands off to the side, several feet away from everyone else.

Kendra is standing not too far away from him, lighting a cigarette pinched between her thumb and forefinger. It's a habit she only picks up when she's distressed.

She ignores him, focused on the burial a few yards away and takes a few drags.

When the last rose is thrown by Bailey, and the casket begins to lower into the ground, Paul finally speaks.

"How come you're not over there?" he asks.

It's a clumsy attempt at reaching out to her, but she blows out a pillar of smoke and humors him.

"I can see just fine from here," she responds curtly. Always with the sharp tongue.

Her face crumbles for a second, and then shakes her head and takes a few more drags.

Paul doesn't say anything else. He doesn't need to. If she didn't want him around, she would tell him so. He knows she would never admit it, but during times like this she's always been comforted by his silent presence.

When the casket is finally lowered, the mourners proceed to their cars. He sees Bailey sitting on the hood of their Mustang, staring at them with an indiscernible expression on her face.

Kendra stomps out her cigarette and without turning back to him, says shakily, "Thanks for coming, Paul."

Paul grunts in response, and watches the cars peel out of the parking lot. He stands in solitude with his hands shoved in his pockets for a few minutes until he hears the familiar squeak of a wheelchair.

He turns, and Billy Black is rolling up with Sue Clearwater and Old Quil flanking him. They all share a solemn look with him that speaks volumes.

"Well?" Billy prompts.

Paul just shakes his head.

"Damn sunglasses," he mutters. But he knows now, without a doubt, Diana's instincts were right when she first warned him to stay away from her granddaughter.

* * *

The reception is held in Kendra and Bailey's childhood home. Almost every flat surface in the kitchen is covered with a casserole dish. Paul eyes some of them with undisguised disgust.

He never understood why casseroles were the default funeral dish. It was just a mishmash of strange foods bound together with cheese, but some people's interpretation of the dish was downright inedible. Even for him.

And going by the grimace on Bailey's face as she peels back a layer of foil, it's clear she agrees with him.

"I'll never look at cheese the same way again," Bailey muses to herself.

"Hey, now. We can't all go to cooking school like you," Paul lightly jokes.

She turns to him with a strained smile.

"Hey, Paul," she murmurs.

Bailey could easily be mistaken for Kendra's twin, if not for the height difference (and it was really only by two inches). Their facial features and warm brown skin favored their mother, but the rounded shape of their eyes and loose curl pattern came from their father.

They could easily be distinguished upon speaking, as Bailey has the more soprano voice of the two.

"Hey, shrimp." He opens his arms, and Bailey rushes around the counter to embrace him.

It's rare for him to publicly show affection, but he knows they both could use a hug right now.

He frowns when Bailey abruptly pulls back from him with alarm on her face.

"You're burning up!" she hisses, pressing a hand against his neck. She immediately starts babbling. "Are you sick? Maybe you should sit down. Here, I'll get you some ice water. Or maybe we should call a doctor? Do you feel nauseous-?"

"I'm fine," he interrupts, grabbing her shoulders before she can flutter about.

She stares down at his hands with growing unease. He's sure the heat radiating from his palms is not helping his case. He drops his hands to shove them in his pockets.

"Paul… what _happened_ to you?"

"I run at a higher temperature nowadays. It's also kinda stuffy in here anyway," he adds lamely.

She looks doubtful. "Are you joking? You could fry an egg on your palm!"

"I'm fine."

By the glint in her eye, he knows she's caught him in a lie. He's not sure what she's searching for in his expression, but whatever she sees there makes her back off. She drops her eyes reluctantly.

She sniffs, crossing her arms. "Fine."

"Fine."

"Fine!"

They both smirk at each other before Bailey ducks close for another hug. He smooths his hand down her hair.

Their relationship had always been easy from the start because they both had the same agenda.

 _"We make sure she's happy,"_ she would say.

Goofing around with each other every chance they got was tradition before he phased. He's glad that didn't change.

Bailey is only a year younger than him, but he was always unreasonably protective of her, and treated her like the younger sister he never had. Paul thought of himself as a poor substitute for an older brother, but the way Bailey easily accepted him as her family screamed the complete opposite.

While she did not have the same cutting gaze as Kendra and their grandmother because of her doe eyes, she was always able to see the good in him. All of the Silver women saw him, the real him, and somehow still loved him intensely anyway. More than he thought he deserved.

"You clean up real nice," Paul murmurs. The black cotton dress she wore fit snug around her waist and flared at the hips.

He'd actually never seen her in a dress before. School pictures, formal events- she always wears pants.

She always opts for boyish, oversized silhouettes or sportswear, preferring to stay from anything that couldn't be comfortably worn in the gym or as pajamas.

Bailey snorts, tugging at the sleeves hugging her arms. "Kendra made me wear it. First and last time, buddy." She tugs on his jacket. "You, on the other hand, look one second away from busting out of this thing."

"It's the best one I got." It's the _only_ one he's got, plucked straight off the rack of a thrift store.

"You _do_ remember she can help you alter this, right? It would be the perfect excuse to talk to her."

He hums in agreement, but it makes Bailey roll her eyes when she tilts her head back, refusing to release him from her hold.

"Same old Paul. A man of few words." She crinkles her nose. "Am I gonna have to lock you two in a room so you can kiss and make up already?"

He opens his mouth to respond, but a movement in his peripheral makes him tune in on another conversation in the living room.

Kendra is sitting on the couch, mechanically nodding at family friends giving their condolences. With each passing guest, she looks more and more haggard.

The way her skin paled throughout the day was concerning, but she wouldn't be getting rest any time soon. The line of people waiting to speak to her looks endless, but the next person to take a seat beside her is Sue Clearwater

Kendra perks up when she sees Sue, as she is one of the most familiar faces she's interacted with so far.

Leah and Kendra were not particularly close in high school. Leah was one grade below her, in the same year as Bailey, but they were truly only friendly with each other because Diana and Sue were good friends.

Kendra and Bailey would occasionally babysit Seth when Leah was busy, but that was the extent of their interaction for a long time.

It wasn't until the end of Kendra's senior year that the girls had become closer, bonding over their suddenly absent boyfriends. When Kendra went away on a scholarship to New Mexico, Leah followed her a year later at a nearby university. They remained close friends… until Leah phased.

"How are you holding up, honey?" Sue murmurs.

She takes Kendra's hand, brushing her fingers against her knuckles.

Kendra shrugs helplessly. "Doesn't feel real."

"It will take some time," Sue's voice is understanding. "Sometimes I wake up in the morning and still think Harry will be there, making coffee and eggs in the kitchen..."

"I'm sorry we missed his funeral, Auntie."

"No, no, don't feel sorry. We understood. Diana didn't want you to drop everything at school to come home anyway. And plane ticket costs were too much for a last minute weekend trip."

Diana was always adamant about education coming first, doubly so when it came to her adopted daughters. She was always on a warpath to keep anything from interfering with that.

Kendra drops her face into her hands. "We should've visited home more often. There was no _reason_ ," she moans.

Sue carefully rubs her shoulders. "You know how Diana was. She probably didn't want you to be distracted-"

"Distracted from school? Hah! Too late for that, don't you think?" Kendra snaps, pulling away.

"Honey…" Sue holds up placating hands.

"She was always hot to keep us away from home, but me especially! Why is that?"

"I… I don't…"

"She was always hiding things from me."

"She was only doing what she thought was best for you."

"How? How is that best for me?" Kendra sucks in a deep breath and stumbles to her feet with accusing eyes on Sue. "You _do_ know."

"Kendra-"

"Tell me!" Kendra shrieks in their native tongue.

The house is abruptly silent.

Bailey turns toward the commotion, and Paul curses under his breath. He's sure Diana would have eventually told Kendra the truth... but never got the chance.

Sue levels her with a stern look.

"Kendra Nicole Silver, you will _never_ speak like that to me again," she says severely. Her eyes briefly lock with Paul's, and she gentles her expression. "It's not my business to tell."

Kendra glances around the room, breathing harshly with a stricken look on her face, as if she's just realizing there's an audience. She's only met with pitied stares from them.

"I'm… I'm sorry, Auntie Sue," she whispers.

She nervously tucks her hair behind her ear and wraps her arms around her middle. Her shoulders bunch around her ears, and she suddenly looks so vulnerable and _small_.

As confident as she can come across, she never did well in front of a crowd.

Paul averts his eyes when she lifts her head, and he can feel her eyes burning holes into his suit jacket.

Her foot takes a hesitant step forward as she lets out a whimper, so tiny even his sensitive ears almost miss it. She takes another step, and another…

Towards _him_.

And he wants nothing more than to gather her up in his arms and never let her go.

 _Shit_!

He untangles himself from Bailey's arms and turns toward the direction of the backdoor, the closest exit he can get to.

Kendra sucks in a sharp breath and freezes like a deer in headlights. He can hear her heart start to flutter like a hummingbird's wings.

She scrubs her eyes and releases a hitched breath, and Paul instinctively knows his actions have deeply hurt her- _God_ , how many times has he forced himself to turn away from her when she really needed him?- and she's on the verge of a tearful breakdown. He's only seen it happen a handful of times, but she hates for _anyone_ to see her as anything other than composed.

She abruptly walks out of the living room without so much as a glance in anyone's direction and disappears to the other end of the house.

They all hear a door slam, and the guests flinch and whisper among themselves. Sue looks down at her lap sadly.

Out of human earshot, he can still hear Kendra's anguished sobbing from the bathroom she locked herself in.

Bailey follows her after a few minutes of indecisiveness, and he can hear her trying to twist the doorknob.

"Ken, let me in…"

"Go away, Bailey," she moans.

"But Ken-"

"I said go away!" she screams. He can hear her slam her fists against the door for emphasis.

Her heart, already fluttering too fast for his liking, kickstarts into beating a mile a minute, enough for Paul to feel concern. He can hear her gasping and coughing, making choked sounds in the back of her throat.

"Kendra!" Bailey says in alarm. It springs Paul into motion.

"Sue," is all he can manage to growl over his shoulder.

He stalks across the house with Sue hot on his heels. His eyes dart to where Bailey stands in front of the bathroom, frantically switching between yanking the doorknob and smacking the door.

She calls for her sister, but Kendra doesn't respond because _she_ _can't breathe_. And Paul _needs_ to do something about it. _Now_.

"Where's her purse," he growls at Bailey. She blinks up at him uncomprehendingly for a brief second until her eyes widen, and she scurries away. He can hear her curse as she rummages through the bag.

The only substantial update Diana had ever told him about Kendra was that she developed asthma because of the desert air during her tenure at college. Today is the worst possible time for it to rear its ugly head.

He braces one hand against the wall and quickly snaps off the doorknob with the other. The door swings open with a flick of his wrist.

Kendra is lying in a wheezing heap on the tiled floor.

His vision turns red, and every expletive he can think of is screaming in his mind. An invisible fist strangles his own heart and chokes him.

Sue squeezes by his trembling form without a word. She brushes her hair back from her face, but Kendra keeps her eyes squeezed shut. She takes Kendra's wrist to check her pulse as she starts speaking in a calm, low voice.

"Kendra, honey, you're having an asthma attack," Sue says, forcing her to sit upright. "I want you to try to take some breaths with me, okay? In through the nose, out through the mouth."

Bailey stumbles back into the bathroom's doorway with an inhaler in her hand and passes it to Sue like an offering. She backs away in fright and turns to clutch at the lapels of Paul's jacket. She glances up at him with wet eyes, and he places a soothing hand on her head.

"I've never seen it happen before," she whimpers.

It takes a lot of willpower to stop himself from rushing over to Kendra. He knows his reaction is completely unnecessary because he can hear her panicked heartbeat slowing. He _knows_ she's recovering.

And he knows she would react poorly to any kind of help he'd try to give.

But seeing her crumbled on the floor like that… it's almost too much for him to handle.

Sue slowly gets Kendra's breathing under control after ten minutes. They count breaths together until her heartbeat returns to normal, and she sags against Sue's shoulder in exhaustion.

Kendra eventually rouses enough to stand, and she leans heavily against Sue. Paul silently begs her to look at him, but her eyes remain glued to the ground.

"I'll take her to her room," Sue whispers, guiding Kendra away.

As they pass, Bailey reaches out to squeeze her sister's shoulder. "Kendra…"

Kendra won't meet her eyes, but she pauses. "I'm okay. I'm just tired," she mumbles.

Bailey lets her go with a reluctant nod.

Paul walks back to the other end of the house where the crowd of shell-shocked houseguests stand and levels them with an intense, stoic expression.

He knows how empty his eyes can look, as if he were an unhinged nutcase.

It's a look that he's very aware scares the shit out of most people.

"Reception's over. Get out."

The house is cleared out within minutes.

He helps Bailey clean up and put away the food in the fridge. He has to do _something_ with his hands or else he'll go crazy.

Bailey seems to understand, and mercifully doesn't comment on his jerky, rough movements.

He feels like he's on the verge of exploding out of his skin when he finally hears Sue approach Kendra's door.

In seconds Paul is already standing near the bedroom door, ready to rip the doorknob off by the time Sue steps out. She jumps when she almost walks into his hulking frame.

"Is she okay?" he demands, impatient.

Sue pats his chest and responds, "Physically, she's fine. But it's been an emotionally taxing day for her. She's sleeping right now."

She shuffles out of the way and into the kitchen. Paul peaks through the door, and his eyes hone in on Kendra's sleeping face before he glances around the room. Everything is the same as he remembers.

The same fake plants line her windowsill (she couldn't keep real plants alive for long, even if her life depended on it). She has the same tiny daybed, a purposeful choice on her part to make room for her huge workbench, the ridiculous amount of storage bins for her beading and sewing supplies, and a mannequin.

The walls are still painted a dusky pink, and the mural of assorted blooms on the wall behind her headboard were just as vivid as he remembered them. She begged him to help re-paint her room, and she bribed him into hand painting those flowers on her wall.

He adored the way her face lit up when he finally revealed the mural to her years ago; it was one of his favorite memories of them together.

He closes the door with a private, bitter smile on his face.

Sue is giving Bailey a departing hug when he returns to the kitchen.

"Call me anytime, honey, if you need anything. Anything at all," Sue says.

Bailey nods. "Thanks, Auntie Sue. One of these days we'll come over. Maybe catch up with Seth and Leah."

Sue hesitates. "I- Well, they haven't been feeling well recently. I think they caught some kind of nasty flu…" she trails off, giving Bailey a wide smile. "I don't want to spread their illness around, so I'll let you know when it's safe to see them, okay?"

"Oh, that sounds awful. I hope they feel better soon," Bailey mumbles.

Paul snorts. The excuses they had to come up with were always so ridiculous to hear.

Sue shoots him a withering look before she turns to the front door. "Do you need a ride home, Paul?"

Paul has to refrain from rolling his eyes.

"No. I'll… walk," he says lamely. He turns to Bailey with a small grin. "Guess that's my cue to leave."

Bailey pulls him in for one more hug. He can tell she's squeezing harder than usual, and while it would probably make a normal person's breathing constrict, her hug only feels like a brush of a feather to him. The strength of her inconspicuous muscles in her arms is nothing compared to his.

He smiles into her hair before she pulls away.

"Will you come over soon?" At his prolonged silence, she adds, "Please, Paul. Just talk to her."

He places a solemn hand on her head for a few seconds. She stares up at him with those big doe eyes, so similar and yet so different from her sister's. He _cannot_ ruin their lives with his mess.

To prevent the darker part of his mind from talking himself into saying a promise he couldn't keep, he pinches her cheek and steps back.

"Take care of your sister, shrimp," he murmurs, and then heads to the door without a second glance back.

The further he gets, the less temptation he'll have to turn on his heel and run back inside.

That's what he hopes for, at least. The wolf thrashing under his skin seems to think otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before I forget, I post moodboards and ridiculous chapter summaries without context on tumblr!


	3. Plummet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some dialogue in this chapter is pulled directly from the epilogue of New Moon.

Jacob has been successfully dodging Bella's phone calls for two weeks, but now he knows something is wrong.

There is no way Bella would just _call_ him. She'd get fed up with him ignoring her, confront him about it in person and stomp her feet while doing it. That was _always_ her move. But she just kept calling.

Something must've been stopping her from coming because she would never let this go on for so long.

It's her bloodsucker boyfriend. It _has_ to be.

Didn't she see?

Again, Bella was putting herself in danger and setting herself up to get hurt. She didn't realize how much the leeches controlled her life, even when they were gone.

He couldn't comprehend how she suddenly came back to life, eyes glowing again, when she saw that leech's car down the street from her home. Like her catatonic, months long episode never happened.

And when he caught sight of Bella throwing her arms around the pixie bloodsucker, and promptly giving him attitude for behaving poorly around her long lost vampire friend… It was like a splash of horrible, ice cold water to the face.

Jacob knew the vampire lore from the tribe's histories: their scent, their voice, their looks- all made attractive to humans to dazzle them into a false sense of security and dull their flight response to the predator in the room. He wishes that occurred to him sooner, but that night he was so shocked he couldn't think straight.

He's sure of it now, though. Bella was under some kind of influence because of their presence.

And he was just supposed to sit at home and accept that? He absolutely could not.

When Sam mentioned the Council wanting to reaffirm that the treaty was still in effect, Jacob eagerly volunteered to do it, but the alpha was hesitant to let him go on his own. Funnily enough, no one else wanted to take the job.

The pack, who were initially hesitant to let Bella in on tribe secrets out of fear that she was a spy for the vampires and would make them vulnerable, welcomed her with open arms. Treated her like family, like an honorary pack member.

Bella and Jacob knew each other since childhood, but she was a stranger to everyone else. She quickly became integrated with the pack, and they trusted her with a lot- their lives, their tribe secrets. They broke the rules for her, and only expected her discretion in return.

But she offered so much more in return, more than any of them realized. By accepting them for what they were, no questions asked, no looks of disgust or wariness around them- they were all quick to latch on to the hope Bella gave them. Hope that it couldn't be so bad after all, and maybe people would be more open to their situation if they just told the truth.

But when she went off with the tiny vampire and returned with all the Cullens, _accepting them into her life again_ , that hope was quickly shuttered away into a tiny box.

Bella's desertion was the worst possible betrayal to the pack. It was an unexpectedly heavy blow to bear.

Paul's 'I told you so' eyes burned holes in him all the time these days. He was the first to voice his doubts about her when Jacob figured out a way around Sam's gag order, and maintained his position despite the rest of the pack accepting her. His hatred only grew worse, and Jacob can't stand to listen to his thoughts about Bella anymore.

Even Embry, the most easygoing among them and who took a liking to Bella the most (aside from Jacob), was deeply upset by the turn of events and joined the bandwagon of distrust.

Jacob didn't want any of them to be right. He wanted to believe in the very best of Bella. _There had to be an explanation_. And he was going to get to the bottom of it.

Sam let Jacob go alone, warning him that there would absolutely be no fighting happening.

So if he couldn't fight to keep Bella away from the leeches directly, he would do it indirectly. There had to be something. _Something_ \- and then it came to him.

The Harleys.

As soon as he confessed to Charlie what he and Bella had really been up to for the past two months, he was met with fury.

_"I thought you knew better, Jake! Why were you being so irresponsible? Behind my back!"_

Oh, so _he_ was the irresponsible one? The only true irresponsible person Jacob could think of in this situation was Bella.

If she was going to make irrational decisions about her life, he was going to do his damndest to make sure he kept her away from dangerous company.

And so he decided to return her motorcycle. Was it petulant? Sure, but it was the only ammo he had at his disposal without using his fists.

Of course, he can't tell Charlie any of that, so he just accepts his reprimanding words in silence after he leaves the Harley in the driveway. Charlie screams at him from the porch until he's red in the face and goes back inside with a huff and a slam of the front door.

Down the road, the purr of a luxurious car engine a few blocks away travels to Jacob's ears. He leaves the porch to the thicket of greenery that's beyond Bella's backyard.

As Jacob stands under the cover of the forest, the conversation between Bella and Edward becomes clearer as they pull to a stop in that stupid Volvo of his. She's being forewarned about Jacob's dirty deed.

He sneers as the sickeningly sweet smell of the bloodsucker wafts over to him, only growing stronger as they approach.

The bloodsucker is wearing some ridiculously matchy beige outfit, probably in some kind of designer Jacob wouldn't be able to pronounce or afford. He looks out of place next to Bella who's wearing a more reasonable pair of jeans and a light jacket.

Accusations hurl like knives from Bella's eyes when her stomps come to a halt, but Jacob keeps his own locked on Edward. One funny move, and he would tear the bloodsucker to shreds, treaty be damned.

"Let's just get this over with," Jacob growls.

"How could you betray me like this, Jacob?" Bella whispers.

He scoffs. "You wanna talk about betrayal? Look at what you're standing next to!"

"What's _that_ supposed to mean? I get that you're mad at me, but how could you do this to Charlie? Or did you _want_ him to have a heart attack, like Harry?"

He purses his lips and looks away from the hurt in her eyes to hide his own at the mention of Harry. It's a low blow, even for Bella, and not even remotely close to his intentions.

"He just wanted to get you grounded, so that you wouldn't be allowed to spend time with me," Edward murmurs.

The fury ratchets up in Jacob tenfold, and he can feel the wolf restlessly pushing under his skin, just begging to be let out and grind that marble statue to dust.

Was this the mindreading Bella told him about?

Bella throws her hands in the air with a groan. "I'm already grounded, thank you very much! Why do you think I haven't been down to La Push to scream at you for avoiding my phone calls?"

Shock rolls through Jacob, immediately stopping his trembling.

"That's why?" he asks.

"He thought I wouldn't let you, not Charlie. He thinks I'm influencing you," Edward says.

"Stop that," Jacob snaps. He runs a hand through his shorn hair and takes a deep breath. "So you must already know why I'm here."

"Yes," Edward says. "But, before you begin, I need to say something."

Jacob raises an eyebrow. This ought to be good.

"Thank you. I will never be able to tell you how grateful I am. I will owe you for the rest of my existence." Jacob is completely lost and has no idea what he's talking about. "For keeping Bella alive when I… didn't."

Zombie Bella flashes through his mind, and Edward winces. Funny, that.

"I didn't do it for you. I did it for _Bella_."

"I know. But that doesn't erase the gratitude I feel. I thought you should know. If there's ever anything in my power to do for you..."

_Stay the hell away from Bella._

Edward shakes his head. "That's not in my power. I'm here until she orders me away."

When Bella whispers "never," Jacob has to strain to stop himself from screaming.

_Of course_ she'd never order him away. She's already under too deep!

"What else do you want here, Jacob? I'm in even more trouble now. Congratulations!" Bella says sarcastically. She meets his eyes with a frown and crosses her arms. "But nothing will keep me from Edward."

Jacob shakes his head in disbelief. He turns his glare on Edward.

"Just a reminder of a key point in the treaty _you_ agreed to. Any of your kind bites a human, the truce is over. _Bite_ , not kill."

Bella's face turns cold. "If I want to become a vampire that's none of your business."

"Actually, it is," he snaps.

But that's all he can manage to get out. Heat crawls up in his spine and spreads through his bone marrow like molten lava.

He has to press his fists against his temples and squeeze his eyes shut to keep the wolf at bay. He can feel his bones and muscles trying to shift under his skin, causing him to convulse uncontrollably.

She wanted to become one of _them_? If not for that stupid treaty and Sam's Order, he would rip out that bloodsucker's throat for putting that idea in her head.

He manages to lift his eyes to look at Bella.

"Why would you ever want something like that?" he chokes out.

She looks pained, but before she can respond, he can hear the front door of Bella's house slam open. Charlie is spitting with fury.

"BELLA! YOU GET IN THIS HOUSE THIS INSTANT!"

Jacob turns his back before Charlie finishes his roaring command.

He doesn't want to face Bella anymore. He _can't_. It's the expression on her face that kills him. The 'oh no, I let something slip that I shouldn't have' face. He doesn't know how to wrap his head around what she just said to him.

Is it the effects of being around bloodsuckers for too long or is it… really just Bella?

He has to go. _Now_. Before his world collapses in on itself. Coming here was a huge mistake.

"One more thing, Jacob," Edward says. Jacob doesn't turn around. "We've found no trace of Victoria on our side of the line… have you?"

That tricky redhead came again when Bella was running off to Italy. The noose formation they used to capture her seemed to be working, and then out of nowhere she ran off. She probably caught the scent of the tiny bloodsucker he met at Bella's house before they left.

The pack hadn't seen or scented a trace of the redhead on their hourly patrols since. Jacob doesn't bother saying any of that though, since apparently Edward can read his mind.

"Noted," Edward murmurs. "When she comes back, we'll take care of her."

"She killed on _our_ turf. _We're_ going to kill her," Jacob snaps.

"ISABELLA SWAN!"

Jacob takes a step toward the thick of the forest, but her voice stops him.

"Jake, we're still friends, right?" Bella whispers. At the slow shake of his head, she reminds him, "You promised."

He spins around, furious. "Yeah, well what about me? What about hurting _me_?"

Bella stares at him with wide, pain-filled eyes. She clings to Edward like she can't support herself anymore. The bastard scowls at Jacob.

Why does she have to look at him that way? Didn't she know what this whole fiasco was killing him with worry? With fear?

How could his best friend get on the fast track to becoming his mortal enemy and think it would be roses between them?

He silently vows not to face her again and turns back on his heel. His words are only for the trees now in front of him.

"You _know_ how hard I try to keep that promise."

"Jake…"

"I can't see how to keep trying. Not anymore. Just… go home, Bella."

He takes long strides to force himself as far away as possible before he does something _really_ stupid.

Jacob trudges through the forest, trying desperately not to turn around and beg Bella to change her mind. He wants to destroy the _thing_ that was going to inevitably destroy her.

It's like struggling against quicksand, and with each step he takes a thousand grainy hands are pulling him deeper.

He walks until his feet simply give up on him. The incessant vibrating of his body is uncontrollable. He doubles over and once again presses his fists to his eyes.

He thought turning into a wolf was awful enough. But this! This is too twisted for him. It's too awful to be true.

Bella was the only person he had left, his only remaining piece of normalcy and comfort from his old life. She was his rock, his confidant, his found family who still saw him as _Jacob_ beyond the looking glass when he was forced into this new life.

And now even she was being taken from him.

Time had always been his enemy. His mother, his childhood, his sisters, his future- all gone.

His Bella, soon to be cold marble, pale, _red-eyed_...

Disgusted, he falls forward on his knees and retches. If only he could expel his cursed thoughts and bludgeoned heart from his body.

Dragging a painful breath through his lungs, he scrabbles back and leans against the bark of a tree. He buries his face into his hands and holds in a scream.

_WHY?_ Was she thinking about him? At all? What her decision would mean for him? For their friendship? For the pack?

He can't comprehend how time has gotten away from him.

_Anyone but her. Not Bella. It can't be Bella._

Jacob didn't know when it would happen, but his best friend signed her life away, and she was going to die. For real this time. And he can't do anything about it.

The abandonment he tried so hard to ignore hits him like a ton of bricks.

Without much thought for his clothes, he phases into a wolf. Embry and Sam are already phased, and they get an instant replay of his jumbled thoughts. A barrage of questions follows, but Jacob growls at them both.

_"Don't,"_ he snarls. He phases out before they can say anything else and continues the run on two feet.

The run back to his home should've been a few short minutes, but it feels like hours. He feels roughly carved out with a dull spoon, yet somehow his head is stuffed with cotton.

Jacob climbs through his bedroom window and digs through the piles of clothes on the floor of his closet to find another pair of pants. He pulls on a pair of gray sweatpants and makes his way to the kitchen.

There's a near constant pile of dishes and grimy buildup on the counters.

Since his transformation, he's neglected his duties at the sole caretaker of his disabled father. Between patrol and just trying to get sleep, he doesn't have the time or the patience like he once did to upkeep their tiny home. And he did everything in his power to make sure the pack never found out. Everyone had their own problems; he didn't want to burden them with his own.

He went so far as to never let Bella in the house. They always hung out in his garage so he could hide the unglamourous parts of his life from her. Bella would have valiantly insisted they stop hanging out to allow him have more time to take care of his father if she knew.

Jacob wasn't that brave. The time he spent with Bella was the only time he allowed himself to be a little selfish and revert back to that happy-go-lucky teenager he once was.

He's ashamed of how quickly it's all gone to shambles. There's no more pretending now.

The illusion of normalcy fizzles away, evidenced by their nearly empty fridge save for the jars of his father's insulin and a carton of eggs.

Billy never consistently takes his medicine, and he avoids appointments like the plague. On top of his suspicion of doctors in general, he refuses to go to Forks General despite it being the nearest (and most acceptable) hospital that takes his insurance plan because he won't step foot in an establishment where he knows a leech works.

His hatred for vampires outweighs any health concerns he has. The next doctor's office is closer to Port Angeles, almost an hour's drive away. His track record is even worse now that Jacob isn't able to dedicate a measly three consecutive hours to drive his father to and from his appointments anymore. Something else _always_ comes up. Protecting the tribe consumes his life.

He punches the fridge with a curse. The guilt eats at him.

He wishes, more than anything (and for the trillionth time), that his sisters would just come home and help him. They were family and they were supposed to stick together. But he knew it would be a cold day in hell before Rachel and Rebecca would return any time soon. Once they left when he turned fourteen, they used every excuse in the book to avoid coming anywhere near La Push.

"Jake? That you?"

He turns to the sound of his father's deep voice, and just stares at him.

Looking at his father now- washed out, weathered with time, yet still trying to act so damn prideful despite it all just makes Jacob sad. How Billy was able to just continue on with his life despite everything thrown at him with nothing but poker face was beyond Jacob's comprehension.

"When was the last time you took your meds, dad?" Jacob asks. When Billy has the audacity to look embarrassed, he presses, "Or gone for a checkup?"

"Jake, I'm fine-"

"Are you? Are you really? How do you know?" Jacob whispers.

Billy pauses, eyes darting between Jacob's as he tries to pull the right response from the air. He settles with, "It's gonna be okay, Jake. We always figure it out."

"It's not okay! It hasn't been okay for a long time," Jacob explodes. His gestures wildly to the kitchen. "Everything is messed up. The house is a mess. There's barely ever any food here. We're gonna have to order pizza for dinner. _Again_. You shouldn't even be eating pizza!"

"Jake-"

"Harry just died from a heart attack. Diana had a brain bleed. I'm- I'm killing you, dad!" His anger abruptly deflates. He mutters, "What am I supposed to do without you, old man? I can't lose you. Not you, too."

"I'm not _going_ anywhere. I'm too stubborn to let the universe take me out yet." Billy grins.

Jacob isn't in a laughing mood. "The universe is a fickle bitch."

Billy pins him with a solemn expression. "Tell me what happened, Jacob. This isn't like you."

Jacob scoffs. How long has it been since he felt like himself? Since he felt like he was in control?

"Nothing, dad. I'm just tired. Need some sleep," he mumbles. He runs a hand through his hair. "Please, just take your meds."

He refuses to leave the kitchen and watches his father like a hawk until he finishes his dose. Afterwards, he collapses into his bed and stares at an old, creased picture of him and Bella posed together on his porch.

* * *

Time moves in slow motion for Jacob. He keeps dreaming, of all things, about his mother's embrace. It's a recurring dream that always starts out the same way.

He's always a child in this dream, and his mother, Sarah, stares at him from several feet away with a bright smile on her face. _His_ smile.

She's wearing the last outfit he saw her in the day of her freak accident- blue jeans tucked into wellies, and a light pink flannel. She holds her arms out to him, the same way she would offer when he would come into his parent's bedroom complaining of a nightmare or when he walked in from a day of school.

They're always standing on the sand of First Beach, surrounded by driftwood and debris.

It's silent except for the roaring sound of the waves crashing against the sand. Sarah says nothing as she beckons him to come closer with her hands.

Jacob only heard stories about what happened to his mother.

A truck came around the bend of the road on a cliff. The headlights weren't on, and her car smashed through the metal barrier. The car nose-dived off the cliff and into the river below.

She died before she hit the water, or he heard.

Billy refused to let any of them see the body and had the coffin nailed shut. She was too disfigured and other. It wasn't Sarah anymore.

And this… _thing_ … isn't Sarah either. It _can't_ be.

It has the same face, but it's not really her. He would know. Something in his gut is screaming at him that it's not her.

But it's so _real_. He wants to touch her, just to confirm for himself.

He takes one step forward, and Sarah takes one step back. Water splashes at her boots as the tide comes in. Another step, and she goes further into the water.

Jacob freezes. He doesn't like this game. But she still smiles, beckoning him.

"Mom?" he murmurs in a trembling voice, approaching her again.

She takes another step back. Her pants are soaked to the knees. He's still so _far_.

By the time his feet reach the edge of the tides Sarah is already waist deep, beckoning him still. The waters darkens the denim and flannel, now clinging to her skin.

He rushes forward now, sloshing through the water. His body, only that of a nine year old, struggles against the strength of the waves, and they push him around on clumsy feet. His arms fly out to keep his balance.

He's on the tips of his toes now, barely keeping his chin above water as he tips his head back. The water thrashes him about even worse, and he just wants to give up, but he can't reach.

Water almost completely obscures Sarah from his view. She's still standing, but only her eyes are visible above the surface of the water. Unblinking, and trained on him. Her hair floats around her face in black, snake-like tendrils.

Her smile is gone, hidden under the shadowy water, but the crinkle of her eyes is all he needs to see for him know that smile is still frozen on her face. The waves batter her, but she's unaffected. Immovable. _Smiling_.

Jacob wants to get to her so badly.

"Mom, please," he sobs.

One more step, and the sandy floor drops out beneath him. It's unexpected, and he drops into the ocean.

Water rushes into his mouth, burning his lungs. He lets out a strangled scream and flails his arms and legs, _something_ , to pull himself back up to the surface.

Nothing works.

He can't see anything. His mother isn't anywhere in sight. The water is too dark, and he can't tell which direction is up or down anymore. All he knows is he's alone again.

Bubbles rush from his mouth as he screams one more time.

Nothing.

He can feel his muscles grow weaker as panic settles in. He's too tired to go on. His face goes slack, and he sinks further into the dark until he hits the ocean floor, unseeing.

Jacob lays there indefinitely, in nothingness, not dead but certainly no longer breathing. He's not sure what prompts him to turn his head.

Sarah is laying beside him, one hand propping her head up and the other held out to him.

He hesitates. Impossible.

She mouths something to him that he can't quite make out. It takes him a few seconds before it registers.

She's singing.

It's her favorite song- _his_ favorite song- that they would belt out together in the kitchen or in the car. It never fails to make him smile.

Jacob rolls over.

Her arms wrap around him in a vice grip and she holds him to her chest. He's tucked right under her chin, and he holds onto her just as tight, taking in her familiar scent- cocoa butter and vanilla. That embrace injects him with warmth and comfort.

"Don't let me go," he begs.

She runs her fingers through his hair without a response and keeps singing.

He can never tell how long the dream goes on. He just listens to her crooning in his ear, distorted by the water surrounding them.

_"Just like the white winged dove sings a song, sounds like she's singing. Ooh, ooh, ooh…"_


	4. Ripple

Jacob's dreams persist.

Sarah keeps singing that same Stevie Nicks song and holds him, but it doesn't bring him the same comfort as the first time did.

Ever since he made an attempt to pull himself away from her, just to get a look at her face, his dreams became darker. More vivid. Longer.

Inexplicable dread curled up his spine whenever he even _thought_ about moving away, and it made him freeze in terror. The more he tried to move, the worse the fear became. It reaches a point where he doesn't want to attempt to see his mother's face anymore. He just wants to leave the space entirely. But he _can't_.

His fear of being alone- of leaving behind someone who understands him perfectly- won't ease its grip. What else would he have left to do now but to cling to his mother's memory?

Jacob would remain there, stuck underwater, until the dream mercifully ended and he was finally back in his bedroom.

Each time he wakes up feeling unrested; all the hours of sleep he gets doesn't make the exhaustion go away. In fact, it makes him feel _worse_. It makes him irritable and jittery and worst of all, paranoid.

He thinks everyone is on to him, all the time. Patrol shifts are hell. It's a tremendous strain to keep his thoughts together when he shares a mind with six other wolves. One twitch, one _thought_ out of line and it's game over. They _can't_ know how messed up he is.

He fills his mind with random, nonsensical thoughts to drown out any imagery from his dreams. He snaps at anyone who he thinks looks at or pays attention to him for too long. Anything to keep the pack off his trail and away from his thoughts.

But he's _so tired._

He's never been so distracted on the job before, but he manages to skate by with his darker thoughts secured away for a few days until Embry starts to notice something is off. Of course he would.

Embry, the most balanced member of the pack and the most intuitive, always notices every little detail. It's why Sam named him the pack's unofficial track lead- nothing slips by Embry. He's the patron saint of patience and observation.

Sam put them both on the same patrol shift, which was really just bad luck on Jacob's part. Embry didn't question him the entire run, but he could hear his friend's curious thoughts poking at the fortress he put up around his own.

Jacob is quick to phase back as soon as their shift is over. He shucks on his sweatpants and tries to hurry away without a glance at Embry.

"Jake… you got a minute?"

Dammit.

Jacob glances at his friend over his shoulder and grunts.

For a while, Embry just walks beside him in silence. There's a furrow in his brow, like he's trying to find the right words to start the conversation.

"Ever since Bella…" Embry trails off and purses his lips. He doesn't like to talk about it either. "You're shutting down, man. What's going on?"

"It's nothing, Em. I'm good." He's fine. He's _always_ fine. He has to be.

"No. You're not," Embry presses. "We're all upset, but you're taking it harder."

"It's not the same for you."

Embry's eyes narrow. "Are you in love with her?"

"...What? No! _No_ ," Jacob nearly shouts. He takes a deep breath to steady himself. "I love Bella, okay, but not like that. She's like family, for crying out loud. Like you."

"That doesn't mean you didn't fall for her anyway."

Jacob sighs and runs his hands through his hair. That was fair.

Since childhood everyone around them always assumed they were dating or in love with each other. Admittedly, at one point years ago he thought he developed romantic feelings for Bella, but it never got farther than one awkward summer night's kiss that ended with them both grimacing at each other and agreeing to just stay friends. He felt like he was kissing his sister.

"I didn't," he says firmly. "People just keep dropping out of my life, man, no matter how hard I try to hold on to them."

"But _I'm_ still here, Jake."

"Yes, Em, and I love you like a brother but…" Jacob struggles to find the right words. "You liked Bella as soon as you met her. One minute and you knew right away she was a little broken, a little strange. Another odd one out, just like us, right?"

Embry nods.

"Do you know why I like Bella so much, beyond that stuff? I have six other people who have access to my thoughts damn near all the time. You'd think at least _one_ of them would know me pretty well by now, right? Shouldn't there be some benefits to this stupid pack mind?" Jacob snorts. "I get upset, but I should just get over it. 'Don't ruin it for everyone else, Jake! Don't bring everyone else down misery lane with you.' You know who wouldn't do that?"

"Bella," Embry murmurs.

"Bella isn't a mind reader! But somehow she always knew what to do for me. I was so dependent on her to do that, I didn't even know it. And now she's GONE. So what am I supposed to do now, huh? I know you would be there if I needed to unload, Em- just like you are right now- but it's _not the same_ ," Jacob hisses. "Then I find out she's going to die. Soon! But it's not my business, right? I should just get over her because she's the enemy now, right?"

"Jake-"

"How would _you_ feel if I went off to go kill myself? Right now. Huh? How would you feel?" He pauses at Embry's sharp intake of breath. "What if _you_ knew you could stop me if you just had more time, but all you can do is stand there and watch and accept it?" A derisive chuckle leaves his lips as he clenches his fists. "That's how I feel. Like I'm on this roller coaster ride and I wanna get off already, and I don't know if I can take it anymore, Em… I can't shake this _feeling_. Like something really bad is gonna happen. And too many bad things have already happened, you know?"

And just like everyone else, without even meaning to, Embry gives him that look he's been dreading this whole time and it's absolutely not what he wants to see right now.

He's staring at him, wide-eyed, dumbfounded, _like he doesn't know what to do_. It makes Jacob feel sick. He closes his eyes in resignation.

"You _don't_ wanna know what else is going on in my head. You don't. It's too much. So just drop it. Okay? Please, Em."

Because of the soft heart his friend has, he knows Embry will drop it if he asks him to, even if he doesn't want to. Embry lets him brush past without a word, but his worried eyes speak volumes.

When he gets home, Billy is in their living room in front of the TV. A rerun of an old Mariner's game is playing on the screen. His father lowers the volume and speaks over his shoulder.

"Bella called again," he says.

"Figured," Jacob mutters under his breath.

He trudges into his room and settles into his bed. And has that same damn dream again.

Like he anticipated, the dream is just as uncomfortable as the last few times. The water, the beckoning, the sinking, the _singing_.

He shouldn't be here anymore. It's all wrong.

Jacob fights against the terror that locks his limbs and shifts away. He's only able to move an inch before Sarah makes a grab for him. Her fingers squeeze him like a blood pressure cuff, keeping him in place. He's trapped.

His voice is strangled when he remembers how to speak.

"Mom?" He doesn't know if it's his subconscious rebelling against him, or something else.

She keeps singing.

Distantly, he can hear howling. It sounds like it's coming from the opposite end of a long tunnel. The singing gets louder, as if his mother is trying to drown out the sound. Jacob renews his struggles.

" **JACOB.** " It's Sam's voice.

Sarah disappears into a whisper of sand, and his body is dragged up through the water.

As he breaks the surface and blinks back the sea foam from his eyes, he looks up to see Sam standing over him, leaning through his bedroom window. He's glaring at him with a fist knotted in the collar of his t-shirt, hauling Jacob up from his nest of pillows.

" **You'll come when I call for you. Get. Up,** " Sam commands. He releases Jacob's shirt with a flick of his wrist. "Quil finally made the change. Come."

Sam jogs away from the window without another word, vibrating as he goes.

Like a marionette on strings, Jacob jumps through his window and follows after him with a curse, fumbling with his clothing. He pays no mind to where he tosses his clothes as he phases and enters the chaos of the pack mind.

Just as the rest of them did when they first phased, Quil is freaking out and running around like a chicken with its head cut off. He's near the main part of town, where he's bound to expose himself if he keeps running any further.

" _Shit, shit, shit, SHIT_ ," Quil yells.

" _Quil, dude, it's okay,_ " Jacob murmurs carefully. " _You're gonna be okay. We're gonna help you, but you gotta stop running around, man._ "

" _I have fucking paws and I'm FURRY_ ," he screams back. " _WHY DO I HAVE PAWS?_ "

" _Quil-_ "

" _HOW ARE YOU TALKING TO ME IN MY HEAD? WHAT KIND OF FUCKED UP ACID TRIP IS THIS?_ " Quil gasps. " _DID YOU DRUG ME? YOU_ DRUGGED _ME!_ "

Sam decides to step in. " _ **Quil.**_ "

Quil freezes up hearing Sam's commanding voice, still panting like crazy, but at least he's paying attention now.

" _Quil, just stay where you are, and we can explain everything,_ " Sam says. " _We'll tell you everything you want to know. Just-_ "

" _I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE NEAR YOU, YOU CHILD-SNATCHING WEIRDO BITCH,_ " Quil screams, and he spins in the opposite direction. He scrabbles back when he comes face to face with a sleek, silvery white wolf.

" _You guys don't know how to do anything right_ ," Leah hisses.

" _Oh my GOD, not another one. This is so fucked up! How many of you ARE THERE?_ "

Leah snaps her jaws at him when he tries to worm his way around her. Quil cowers with a whimper and a stream of curses.

" _Yes, I know this is fucked up, but will you_ RELAX FOR ONE FUCKING SECOND AND LISTEN TO ME?"

That shockingly gets him to shut up. Leah sits back on her haunches with a huff.

" _You know what's going on._ Think _. You grew up on these stories, Quil. It's your_ namesake _._ " Leah gets into his face until their muzzles nearly touch. Her black lips curl back. "You _are one of those warriors from the stories, and-_ "

"I'm a warrior?" Quil squeaks. He sounds enamoured by the idea.

"- _you're a wolf right now and you need to change back_ before somebody sees you. _Now start picturing yourself in a happy fucking place with two legs, and we'll go from there. Okay?!_ "

Within seconds, Quil falls on his ass in human form. Sam and Jacob look on in unmitigated shock. It's the fastest anyone has ever made the change back after their first phase.

Leah trots away into the bushes and returns a wrinkled sundress with a pair of shorts folded over her arm.

Quil stares at her, dumbfounded. They're _all_ looking at her dumbfounded.

She crosses her arms. "Are you trying to catch flies?"

His mouth closes with an audible click of teeth. "I turned into a wolf," he says in disbelief.

"Yup."

"Leah…"

"Yes, Quil?"

"You're not wearing a bra."

" _In_ -credible."

Leah throws the shorts at his face and doesn't stick around for his reaction. The shorts fall into his lap, and he watches her back disappear into the forest with something like awe. He turns to Jacob and Sam, still in wolf form when they finally catch up to him, with wide eyes.

"Are we all in agreement that Leah is hot when she's angry?"

Sam growls and Jacob rolls his eyes. His friend would be just fine.

* * *

He slips up while he's on patrol with Leah. It's only a couple of seconds, but that's all it takes.

He couldn't shake the creepy images from his mind. It just cropped up in his thoughts, and all he could think about was that _thing_ from his dreams.

The thing that wasn't his mother. His brain managed to conjure up a twisted version of her: it was exactly what he imagined she looked like in that closed casket when he was a child.

The fingers were too long and stiff and twitchy, like spider's legs. Arms too wispy and thin. Her singing was out of tune. It sounded breathy, strangled almost, and there was a distinct gurgling sound in the back of her throat.

Jacob made his own inhuman sound as he tried to pull away, too afraid to see what her face looked like (bloated with water, mangled- that's what he always pictured) and the desperation to just _get far away_ made him squirm-

" _Jacob, what the FUCK is that?_ "

Leah spins on her paws and stares at him with wide yellow eyes.

" _I don't know._ "

" _What do you mean, you don't know!?_ "

" _Exactly what I said!_ "

" _Have you officially gone insane? If Sam knew-_ "

" _He_ won't _know because_ you're _not gonna tell him._ "

If Sam caught word, he would pull Jacob off patrol, but he _needed_ to be on the schedule. Routine is the only thing that seemed to keep him going.

Leah stares at him in silence- he doesn't know for how long, and she eventually throws her head to the side with a huff.

" _Jacob… I get it. You're sad. The other guys are pissed about her, too. Bella was a snakey bitch-_ "

" _She's_ not."

Leah snorts. " _Yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night. Which you're not by those looks of those nightmares. Jesus Christ, Jake. You are_ not _coping. You need to_ talk to somebody _and let it out before you go nuts._ "

" _Oh, so you have all the answers, Leah? Talking about it gets me_ nowhere _. It just gets me a crazy look, like what_ you're _doing, and that's not what I need right now._ " Leah looks away guiltily. " _I don't want to be coddled by anybody. I just want to be alone so I can get a hold of my shit. And I have_ no _idea how to do that. You know who always knew what to do? Bella. But she's not here anymore, so I'm on my own. I am doing my fucking best with what I have, which is damn near nothing. Don't you get it? Why doesn't anybody_ get that?"

Leah stares at him for a minute.

" _I do,_ " she says softly.

Her head butts against his shoulder in a surprisingly intimate, wolven gesture. She turns in the opposite direction and, seconds later, her consciousness disappears from his thoughts. He's left in blissful silence.

Leah emerges from the bushes on two legs wearing a hastily thrown on sundress. She crosses her arms and scowls at him.

"Look, Jacob. I understand more than you think I do. I'm familiar with this kind of shit, okay? I have to deal with Sam _everyday_. At least _you_ can keep ignoring Bella if you want to. And my father was the one who always knew what to do for me, but he's… gone. I _know_ what you mean." She sighs and cracks her neck. "All I can really say is, it's gonna hurt. For a long time. Probably forever. If a situation sucks, I let it be known because it's _the truth_ and that's how I fucking feel. If that makes everyone else uncomfortable, _I don't care_. Try it sometime."

Her face scrunches up like she ate a lemon. "Ugh. Look at me, giving out free advice. _You_ finish up patrol on your own. I'm gonna go wash my mouth out with soap."

She disappears without another word, and he's left with his own thoughts for the rest of the evening

He's wary around Leah the next day, but the pack doesn't hassle him, and Leah doesn't mention anything, so maybe she _did_ keep her mouth shut.

She just goes on about her day like nothing happened between them.

Her brusque behavior was oddly… refreshing. The sincerity behind her harsh words had just enough intuitiveness that only an annoying older sister could offer.

It's something he never noticed before. He realizes she's like that with all of the pack, in her own unique way. It's subtle enough that it really could just pass for nagging, but he knows what to look for now.

Her words make the pack straighten up, even when it looks like they only ignore her or snap back at her. She yells at Sam about his terrible scheduling skills, and the next day everyone's schedule is switched around to more convenient shifts and Seth can finally attend school consistently like a regular freshman.

And whatever mind bending trick she used on Quil got him more quickly acclimated into wolf life than anyone else had experienced. Unbelievably, Quil was the first to enter the pack and be genuinely _happy_ about his new lifestyle.

Leah surprisingly doesn't butt in too much, but she does snap at Jacob whenever he seems _really_ distracted and bosses him around just enough to get him to at least _try_ not to look like he's spiralling.

To everyone else, it's just Leah and her usual bitchiness. Jacob knows better.

It comes to an impasse when Leah takes it a step further, showing up at his bedroom window with a large dish covered in foil and a bored expression on her face.

Jacob's eyes narrow. He didn't ask for this. He doesn't need charity from her or anybody.

He opens his mouth to tell her as much, but she just pushes the dish to his chest. He fumbles to grab it before it tumbles onto his bed when she releases the dish without warning.

"I already know what you're gonna say, and it's not like I'm here giving you pity money. I am literally dropping off fucking baked ziti. Let me repeat: Dropping. Off. I'm not sticking around to do anything else." She glances knowingly at his door just over his shoulder, that leads right to the kitchen. So she must've caught some onto of _that_ too. "And before you get your panties in a twist, I only mentioned to Mom how you missed her famous home cooking. She _volunteered_ to make the dish for you. So there. Feel free to unclench your asshole anytime now."

Jacob blinks. " _Jesus_ , Leah," he mutters.

She spins around.

"Wait-" Jacob blurts out, and the rest of his words get stuck in his throat.

She looks over her shoulder, annoyed. When he doesn't show signs of speaking any time soon, Leah sighs and checks the non-existent watch on her wrist. She turns to face him fully.

"You have five minutes. Talk."

"How did you… how do you move on?"

Her mouth opens and shuts just as quickly. "Sorry, but I don't know."

Jacob squints. _What?_

"It's a shitty touch and go process, to be honest. One step forward, eighteen steps back kind of thing." She shrugs. "Just do little things. I realize you can't exactly tell a therapist about your werewolf problems, but you still need to do basic things to _live_. So accept the fucking ziti, eat it with your dad and return the dish when you're done with it. _Cleaned_."

Both of their heads swivel at the same time when they hear a knock from the front door. The floors creak as his father passes his doorway and opens the lock. A familiar, feminine voice makes Leah jump.

"Hi, Chief."

"Kendra! So good to see you again! Please, come in. How have you been?" Billy says.

Leah looks ready to bolt.

"Just wait. She doesn't know we're here. My door's closed," Jacob hisses, grabbing her arm again. Leah looks like she's contemplating if she should chew her arm off to escape. "Leah, come _on_."

Her fist clenches, but she remains at his window.

"It's, uh, been an exciting week," Kendra laughs nervously in reply.

Leah and Jacob smirk at each other.

Exciting? Talk about an understatement. Between patrol shifts and constantly hearing each other's collective thoughts, the pack is acutely aware of the Silver sisters' not-so-savory coping strategies following Diana's funeral.

The Silver household has no neighbors within at least a two mile radius. No one was around to witness their shenanigans up close.

The first night after Diana's funeral was silent. The second day, Jared caught sight of them driving around La Push just once, and it was only to stop by the liquor store. Jared expected them to get turned away, but Leah quickly corrected him.

_"I found a guy on campus who makes quality fake IDs," she told them._

The sisters left the store with several bottles and had not returned to town since. Every sighting thereafter was filled with bouts of crying and drunk stumbling around their property.

Try as he might, but Paul could not hide how much their behavior actually freaked him out. Sure, he'd seen them both drunk before, but not like _this_.

After a night of witnessing them ungracefully climb onto the rooftop in a drunken stupor to "gaze at the fucking stars," as Kendra had so eloquently slurred, Paul was ready to blow a fuse.

It was storming that evening, making it entirely impossible for any stars to make an appearance that night.

Sam had to order Paul to stay put just to stop him from exposing himself as a wolf because of his unease. Everyone else thought it was a hilarious sight, but that only seemed to turn Paul's ire up several notches.

No one dared to make a comment when he phased and resorted to destroying a tree with his fists to let out his anger.

His agitation unsettled the pack to the point that they were all on edge for the rest of the week, and Sam had to pull him from several patrol shifts when his raging emotions became too much for everyone to endure.

"Do you want something to drink? Water? Tea?"

"No, no, I'm okay. I actually wanted to ask you for a favor."

"Sure, sure. What is it?"

"Uh, well, maybe I should explain. I took a week off, but I have to go back to school. You know, take finals and graduate and pack up the rest of my stuff at my old place…" she trails off with a sigh. "Would you mind watching out for Bailey while I'm gone? I was going to ask Sue, but I didn't want to bother her considering… well, you know. And Leah won't answer her damn phone."

Leah flinches.

Jacob couldn't count how many times those phone calls plagued Leah's thoughts when they were on patrol together, and how badly she felt for not answering. For not being around for her closest friend during the one of the worst times of her life.

"Of course! I'll ask Jake and a couple of his buddies to check in on her every now and then."

"Thanks, Chief. You're an angel."

Billy's voice is coated with embarrassment when he mumbles, "Sure, sure."

Kendra laughs. "Anyway, I have to head to the airport soon, so I'll show myself out."

"So soon?"

"Yeah, I'm sorry. I wanna catch up some more, but I'll have more time when I'm back in a few weeks!" Jacob can hear her footsteps shuffling toward the front door. "Tell Jake I'm sorry I missed him and said hi!"

Leah sags in relief when the door swings shut. "Fuck," she sighs.

"Why don't you just talk to her?" Jacob asks.

"Why don't _you_ talk to Bella?"

Jacob purses his lips. Touche.

* * *

"This isn't real, this isn't real, _this isn't real_ ," Jacob chants to himself.

It's not his fake mother in the water anymore. It's Bella now.

Bella Swan is holding him by his shoulders, arms length apart, and her shocking, bright red eyes bore into his. Unlike the other vampire scents he's come across, she smells like death. Like rot.

"Bella," he whispers. "What are you doing here?"

"You promised," she whispers back.

"But you chose already. What am I supposed to do now?"

He stares into her eyes, looking for the understanding that's always there for him. He waits for the words that she'll say that always makes him feel better. He looks and looks and looks. Nothing.

All at once, Jacob stops struggling. He doesn't feel the comforting allure or the fear from the dream anymore. He feels something else, above the surface.

"I can't stay here anymore, Bella. I think I have to let you go."

Jacob wakes with a jolt.

In a flash he's sitting up, gasping for air as if he's starved for oxygen. He wildly glances around the room, confused, until he realizes he's in Emily's guest bedroom. He was so tired after patrol, he made a beeline for her house to take a nap because it was nearby.

A glance at the alarm clock tells him it's the afternoon of April 22nd.

It took him two weeks to finally pull himself out of his own nightmare.

He stares at his trembling hands, shocked.

His heart is hammering in his chest, and he doesn't know why. There's something, _something_ more urgent that's pulling him away from the mattress. He throws the covers off to the side, and rushes to his feet.

There's something important that he has to see. He doesn't know _what_.

He pads down the hallway and stops just short of the kitchen, and watches.

A girl he vaguely recognizes is being dwarfed by Quil's humongous arms. Her long, dark hair billows down her back in waves and hides her profile. He can smell her tears in the air.

The girl pulls away from Quil with a grimace.

"You have a fever," she mutters, sitting up and wiping her face.

"Yeah, because I have the hots for you."

Her lips turn upward. "Poor execution. That's going on your rap sheet."

Quil grins widely. "But I got you to smile, didn't I?"

"Sounds like the others are back," Embry mutters.

The wolves at the table stand up just as Sam and Jared walk into the doorway. Quil and Embry go over to greet them with high fives and mock punches.

Sam breaks from the scuffle and strides over to Emily, grasping her face and kissing her with entirely too much tongue for company.

"Sam," she breathes happily.

The girl watches them both with barely concealed shock.

Quil immediately pulls Jared down for a fake chokehold and crows, "Wide open as usual, Jared!"

"Let him go, Quil! No horseplay in the house! If you break anything, you have to replace it," Emily reminds them.

Quil slides off Jared with a sheepish smile, but he still gets a smack behind the head.

"Hey!" Quil complains.

"Jared!" Emily scolds him. "What did I just say!"

The girl titters in amusement behind fingers scrawled with ink as she watches their antics play out.

Jacob turns his head at the sound of her laughter. He takes a step forward, and the floorboards creak under his foot. The others' attention snap to the noise.

"Dude! You're up!" Embry yells. But Jacob isn't paying attention to him.

He only has eyes for the girl he's only seen in passing through the pack's thoughts but never really looked at before.

Bailey.

Her face is similar to the image of her older sister that Paul has conjured in his mind several times, but there were subtle differences.

She has a softer face and dimpled cheeks. Her lips curve upward, making a greater emphasis on her dimples as she looks up at him with a smile.

What strikes Jacob the most are her wide, doe-like eyes framed by feathery lashes. He feels like he's speared to the floor, frozen by the influence of her irises, so dark they look like liquid onyx. Everything else in the room falls away.

He feels like he's looking directly at her soul through those eyes.

_Oh. There you are. I've been looking for you._

Jacob doesn't realize his feet are carrying him forward until he's right in front of her, and she shivers at his close proximity. Without breaking eye contact, she stands. With a soft touch, gentler than he thinks he's ever been in his life, he traces her jaw with his fingers.

The contact sends an electric surge through his system.

He swears he can see sparks flying from his fingers as his nerve endings go haywire under the skin. She's _glowing_ where he touches, or at least that's what he thinks he sees.

"It's you," he whispers.

Her eyes water as she stares up at him in shock. Her own trembling fingers reach up to cover his hand, and he feels a warm energy circulating between them.

It's the loveliest feeling after being apart for what felt like forever. How many lifetimes have they failed to cross each other's paths? Their souls haven't met in _so long_ -

" _Another_ one?"

Embry's voice breaks the spell.

Jacob blinks in alarm and drops his hand, taking several steps back. Bailey ends the staring contest first, gasping as she looks away with a confused expression and stares at her palms.

She glances up at him, and he's consumed again.

_NO._

He bites his tongue to snap out of it. The coppery taste of his blood and the temporarily blinding pain saves him.

He didn't say goodbye for this. _Not for this._

Unseeing, he glares and stomps out of Emily's home. He can feel their eyes on his back as he leaves, but there's only one pair that he can feel his soul fluttering for.

His Imprint's.

_Fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I died laughing when I wrote Quil and Leah's dialogue. I don't know who I laughed at more. Probably Leah. Her comments are so out of pocket sometimes


	5. Energy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The imprint from a different perspective! I use some [hopefully not obscure] pop culture references in this one. If it's too niche, so sorry haha... I'm trying to stay true to the 2006 ~vibes~

" _It's you."_

Bailey shudders as she stares at her reflection in the smudged mirror. The cold water she splashes on her face does nothing to stem the heat radiating from her inflamed cheeks.

Some cute stranger went from staring at her like she hung the moon and the stars in the sky to glaring at her like she ran over his cat. All in a few short seconds.

She is never accepting invitations from strangers ever again.

* * *

 _Bailey answered the door to two insanely tall men, both well over six feet tall. She was squinting as she glanced at their cutoffs, torn sneakers, and lack of shirts. And, most notably, their impressive muscles on full display like it was a hot summer day in California and_ not _in the middle of spring in the Pacific Northwest..._

_The man on the left was brawny with loosely curled tufts, and the man on the right was leaner with his hair styled in a choppy, short cut that fell in front of his eyes._

" _Um, can I… help you?" she asked slowly._

_Bailey shifted uncomfortably when the bigger guy silently gawked at her with a growing blush on his cheeks. His partner covered his face and slowly shook his head with a grimace._

_Her hand slowly reached for the doorknob. She was_ not _dealing with weirdos today._ _"Okay then…"_

_"You listen to System of a Down?" the broader man blurted out._

_Bailey glanced at the image on her hoodie with a frown. "Yeah, I'm mourning their hiatus." The gawking continued. She pushes the door further. "Cool, um, this is getting weird so-"_

_"Wait!" A large hand wedged between the door before she could completely close it. No matter how hard she pushed, it wouldn't budge._

_There was a gasp. "You have tattoos on your_ hand _!"_

_It was true. Chinese characters were etched down each of her knuckles in black ink. It was something she got on a whim two years ago over summer break._

_She sighed and pulled the door back open. "Can you stop pointing out random things and just say what you want from me already?"_

" _Your sister asked the chief to look out for you while she was gone. We're his son's friends. I'm Quil," he pointed to himself and then to his thinner companion. "He's Embry."_

_Embry waved with a small smile on his face._

_"_ Billy _sent you here?"_

_The two men glanced at each other and turned back to her, nodding vigorously at the same time._

_Bailey pursed her lips. "Why didn't Paul come, then?"_

_"He, uh, didn't want to," Embry muttered._

_She let out a quiet 'huh' and leaned back, taking quick stock of them. She recognized those tattoos on their shoulder; almost everyone on the rez viewed it as a symbol of trouble, but these guys hardly looked like trouble to her. The muscles were kind of menacing, but the gleam in their eyes looked completely innocent. They seemed harmless. Goofy, even._

" _Oh… well, thanks for stopping by." Bailey grimaced. "Ma would probably smack me for my lack of hospitality, but the house isn't in super great shape right now so I'd rather not invite you in... And there's pretty much nothing here to offer you guys anyway."_

_Quil smirked and gave her a wink and a onceover. "You look like you have plenty to offer."_

_Dwarfed in a pair of oversized sweatpants and a hoodie, she had no idea how he could make that inference._

" _Uh-huh…" She returned his smirk with a slight twist of her head. "I'm talking about food, though."_

" _How about I take you out to lunch then? My treat."_

" _Quil!" Embry hissed, elbowing his friend. "This is_ not _what we were asked to do."_

_Shocked laughter burst from her lips. They stared at her with wide eyes as she wiped a tear from her eye with her sleeve._

" _Are you seriously asking me out right now?" She giggled again in disbelief. "How old are you?"_

_Quil's chest puffed up. "You're gorgeous. A babe! And I'm almost eighteen."_

_Bailey blinked in surprise. He was still in high school? Neither of them looked like teenagers. They could pass for post college age at the very least._

" _Thanks, but it's a no for me." He was only a year younger, but she had the distinct impression that he had little to no experience dating, no matter how much of a front he put up._

" _But don't I look older for my age? I'm mature as hell." He gestured toward his defined torso and wiggled his eyebrows. "What girl could ever be disappointed in this? I'm_ really _hot now. I can show you a good time."_

_Bailey snorted. "Congratulations, but please don't."_

" _One date! Let me prove it to you."_

_"You're very stubborn."_

" _But is it working on you?"_

" _Ugh!" Bailey threw up her hands in exasperation and turned to Embry. "How do you deal with him?"_

" _A few smacks to the head usually does the trick," Embry replied._

_She rolled her eyes at that._

" _Listen, can we compromise? I'm sick of eating funeral casserole, but my wallet got lost somewhere in the piles of crap I unpacked. I will get food with you if_ he _," she pointed at Embry, "is also present."_

_Quil's eyes lit up, but Embry blurted out, "Why don't we just go to Emily's?"_

" _Who?" Bailey asked._

" _Our friend's fiance. We hang around their place a lot since she likes to cook. There's always something waiting at their house," Embry explained._

_"Is she gonna be okay with me just showing up at her house?"_

_"Oh, yeah! She loves company. We'll explain, and you'll get free lunch."_

_Quil looked at Embry with utter betrayal in his eyes, and it gave Bailey all the more reason to agree. "Okay! Let's do that. I'll get my shoes."_

_The drive to Emily's house was only fifteen minutes away, they told her. She sat in the back of Embry's car while the boys piled in the front._

_The drive was silent for the first few minutes until the questions Bailey had bubbling around in her mind came to the surface._

" _So, what happened to your shirts? Or even a jacket? Longer pants? It's still April."_

_They both glanced at her in the rearview mirror and then at each other before Embry stuttered out, "We, uh- A group of does, like, rez security together and it's just… easier. Less restrictive."_

" _Yeah, and you know, since we exercise a bunch, we keep pretty warm out here. Plus, May is around the corner. It's not that bad out," Quil added enthusiastically._

" _Sure." She didn't believe them for one second. "So is your induction into this 'security group' commemorated with matching tattoos?"_

" _Uh, we're all really close. Tight knit group," Embry said lightly. "It's like a friendship bracelet, I guess?"_

" _Except very permanent. I would know." She wiggled her fingers for emphasis, and thought of the other tattoos hidden under her clothes._

" _Yeah, sure."_

" _Sounds like an intense friendship."_

_Embry chuckled darkly. "Oh, it is."_

" _So, like a gang, you'd say?" At their silence, she elaborated, "Sam Uley's gang?"_

_Quil just about choked on his spit. "You know about that?"_

" _Only a little. Just things that my sister told me. I haven't been on the rez much for the past couple years. I know Paul's in it," Bailey said. The boys looked increasingly uncomfortable._

" _It's not… We're not bad people. We're nothing like how they make it sound," Embry murmured quietly._

" _Yeah, I know." They glanced back at her in shock. She looked between the two of them and shrugged. "Look, I know Paul, okay? He's like a big brother to me. He's not evil and I trust him. So whatever you guys get up to, I know it can't be bad. He wouldn't join something like that."_

_Quil twisted in his seat to stare at her with a sincere expression on his face. "You know, you kinda rock."_

" _Uh, thanks?"_

" _And I really think you should consider that date."_

_Embry groaned in annoyance and Bailey's mouth popped open._

" _Oh my god, you suck at this! Do you think that really works on girls?"_

_Quil feigned offence at her words. "Oh, like you got any better lines?"_

" _I do! I can flirt my ass off a thousand times better than you!"_

_She spent the rest of the car ride giving him constructive feedback on his flirting technique while also mercilessly poking fun at him. Embry chimed in a few times until Quil claimed he was feeling attacked, and they all dissolved into laughter._

" _Consider yourself lucky if your pickup lines don't earn you a drink thrown in your face," Bailey chuckled._

_Quil squawked at that. "What do you mean?"_

"' _Wanna go halves on a baby?'" she said in a mocking voice. Her lip curled back in a grimace. "Who says that? Why is a seventeen year old saying things like that?"_

" _...Go big or go home?"_

" _Please tell me you're kidding!"_

_Embry interjected with a quiet, "We're here."_

_Bailey peered out of the window. A quaint, chestnut colored home came into view as they turned off the road. There were numerous potted plants sitting on the porch and a small porch swing in front of a wide window. The screen door was wide open, giving view to an open dining area and kitchen._

_Bailey clammed up as they pulled around the front of the house. She slowly followed behind the two boys up the stairs and hesitated in the doorway. A woman was standing in the kitchen in a maroon shirt and a loose pair of jeans._

_The woman didn't turn when she said, "I'm almost finished with lunch. There's some fruit on the table in the meantime."_

_"We brought someone back with us, Em," Quil said, settling in one of the chairs at the table._

_"Em" spun around and wiped her hands on the apron tied over her swollen belly. A red gemstone glittered on her ring finger. Her eyes warily scanned Bailey before she turned to Quil and Embry._

_"What are you guys_ doing _?" she asked in an accusatory tone. Her eyes darted to Bailey and back. "Don't tell me more of you managed to get around the gag order!"_

_Bailey turned to the two boys, her widened eyes screaming, 'She likes company, my ass!'_

_"That's Bailey. Bailey_ Silver _," Embry emphasized quietly._

_The woman blinked, and her eyes grew comically wide._

_"Oh my god. You're Diana's granddaughter, right?" She bonked her forehead with her palm at Bailey's nod. "God, you look just like her. I should've recognized you. So you know about-"_

_"She doesn't know," Embry interjected._

_Bailey frowned. "What don't I know?"_

_"Ah..." The woman smoothed her hands over her apron again and shot Bailey an apologetic grimace. "Sorry, we're talking about you like you're not here. It's just that..." She shook her head, and like a switch, a welcoming smile lit up her face. She held out her hand eagerly, stepping forward. "I'm Emily. It's nice to meet you."_

_Bailey hesitated and shook her hand. "You're Leah's cousin, right? I used to babysit Seth when I was between semesters for the summer." She paused to laugh. "Usually because Leah was busy hanging out with you. Hey, have_ you _seen her? I was hoping to catch her before she went back to New Mexico."_

_Quil and Embry made choking noises behind her, and she glanced back at them in confusion._

_"What?" she asked._

_Emily cleared her throat. "She hasn't been around. Not since what happened to Uncle Harry."_

_"Right. Sorry." Bailey deflated._

_"And I'm sorry about Diana," Emily said. She gestured to herself and the two boys. "We all knew her, one way or another. She was really kind to us."_

_Bailey swallowed harshly and plastered a smile on her face. Her her grandmother's name still made Bailey ache._

" _Thanks. I'm really sorry for intruding like this. And coming empty-handed. But if I eat one more bite of casserole, I might actually die."_

_Emily laughed. "Oh, don't worry about it. I always cook enough to feed an army. Help yourself to whatever you like."_

" _Thanks," Bailey breathed. "If you need any help in the kitchen, I'd be happy to pitch in. I can cook."_

" _Oh, I'm almost done here. Please, have a seat at the table."_

_As soon as Bailey walked toward the dining table, she felt an invisible thread pulling at her chest, urging her to go further into the house. She ignored it the first time._

_Emily returned to the oven and Bailey sat to the right of Quil and Embry. They all nibbled on the fruit at the table in silence until Emily came back with several sheet pans of ham and cheese rolls and loaded nachos. The boys looked awed over the display, and Bailey laughed at them._

" _Please make sure to leave some for your brothers. They should be coming back soon," Emily said, exasperated. She turned to Bailey with a conspiratory gleam in her eyes when she whispered, "They eat like pigs."_

_Quil and Embry both gave her offended looks but ultimately returned to piling food on their plates._

_Emily watched them with equal parts disgust and fondness. She pulled out another plate and placed a couple of sandwiches on them. She_ _was only gone for a minute, and the two boys looked up with curious eyes._

_Emily shook her head, returning to the table with a full plate._

" _Is someone else here?" Bailey asked._

_They all looked at her with wide eyes._

" _Uh, yeah. Another friend of ours," Embry said. "He was supposed to come with us, but he was too tired. Jay hasn't been feeling very well recently."_

_Jay?_

_Emily sighed. "He's still sleeping. He's been sleeping_ a lot _, actually. Always so tired these days."_

_Embry turned to pick at his food with a pucker to his brow._

_The timer going off saved any of them from having to explain further, and Emily jumped up to scurry to the oven._

_Bailey's curiosity wasn't abated in the least, but she suspected she wouldn't be getting an elaboration from them._

" _I made bread pudding," Emily said. She placed a steaming glass tray on the table. "It has raisins in it. I hope that's okay."_

" _Anything you make is fine with us, Em!" Quil enthused. He turned to Bailey with a frown. "Hey, what's wrong?"_

_She looked up from the dessert in confusion and noticed them all staring at her with concern. She wasn't aware she was standing up until Quil picked up her fallen over chair. He also climbed to his feet and peered down into her eyes._

_Quil swiped a thumb across her cheek, and she felt wetness smear on her skin. Bailey blinked in surprise._

" _Sorry, sorry! Oh my god, I…" She wiped at her eyes with trembling hands. "I don't know where this is coming from. Uh-" She laughed nervously, scrubbing at a few more escaped tears. "My grandma used to make bread pudding a lot, so I think I just…"_

_She trailed off and sniffled with an embarrassed smile on her face._

_Crying in front of strangers. Nice one._

_"No, it's okay. We understand," Emily murmured._

_Embry offered her a soft smile. "You wanna try it?"_

_Bailey nodded helplessly. A tug from Quil had her back in her seat, and Embry slid a plate with a generous portion toward her. One bite, and she was crying again._

_It tasted exactly the same as she remembered._

_"Sorry," she sobbed. She placed her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands. "I'm more of a crybaby than usual these days. I'll stop in a minute."_

_"Hey, now. You have a perfectly good reason to cry," Emily cooed, rubbing her back._

_Quil hooked an arm around Bailey's shoulder and pulled her to him. "C'mere, you."_

_She accepted it without any protest and leaned against him until her tears abated. The sweltering heat that radiated from his skin was just like Paul's._

" _You have a fever," she muttered._

" _Yeah, because I have the hots for you."_

_That made her snort. "Poor execution. That's going on your rap sheet."_

" _But I got you to smile, didn't I?"_

_He did. She would give him points for that._

_To her surprise, more half naked men walked into the house. Embry and Quil rose to greet them, and Bailey gawked when Emily ran into the arms of Sam_ freaking _Uley._

_Before she could speculate anymore at the sight (he was swallowing Emily's face whole like they didn't have an audience), Quil rushed to horseplay with the other man who walked in. Emily reprimanded them in a way that made it clear it was a common occurrence, and the distraction made her laugh._

_"Dude, you're finally up!"_

_She turned her eyes to where everyone else was looking, and her soul promptly lit on fire, buzzing with excitement under her skin like a swarm of bees. She could feel it almost thrashing about, trying to rip itself from her body to reach out to him. Her heart kicked into full throttle._

Found you.

 _The mystery man was suddenly touching her. Tears welled up in her eyes. Just looking at him and feeling him made her so,_ so _inexplicably happy to the point of tears._

 _Something in her missed him so much_ _and was elated at their reunion_. _The odds were finally in their favor._ _That familiar soul- she'd recognize it anywhere, and it_ _was there! Right there! Touching her face and hand, suffusing her with a comfortable warmth like he was the sun itself. And, like instant feedback, she could feel something in her palms thrumming... returning that same warmth back to him. Like they were communicating with each other._

_But as quickly as he appeared, he swiftly ran out of the house and stole away the glimmer with him._

_Bailey immediately asked for directions to the bathroom and holed herself in since his departure._

* * *

They've _never_ met, she's sure of it. He cut a figure that couldn't be forgotten. He has an elegant physicality _and_ warm presence that simply radiates from his form.

But Bailey _swears_ she knows him.

Nothing of his face was familiar, as attractive as it was, but that wasn't what sparked her recognition. It was something more visceral as soon as she looked into his eyes. Those pretty, brown eyes that glued to her and drew her in like dark, sticky sweet molasses.

Whatever enchantment he held in them, it was some potent stuff.

She can _still_ feel the faint prickle where his hand touched along her jaw, like a live wire releasing a gentle current against her skin.

How did he _do_ that?

And top it all off, a part of her strangely _missed_ him- a soul deep nostalgia for the man she barely met for more than a few measly seconds.

Bailey sucks in a sharp breath and splashes more cold water on her face. A groan of mortification leaves her lips.

Here she is, obsessing over a man she never had time to speak to or learn his name. It was _weird_.

But she wants to know more about it… _whatever_ it was. It's definitely a terrible idea.

After patting her face dry with a paper towel, she takes a deep breath and glares at her reflection with a threatening finger pointed at herself.

"Get it together," she whisper-shouts.

Bailey leaves the bathroom in a huff and retraces her steps to return to the kitchen.

As she turns the corner, she catches Emily and the others murmuring together in a huddle, but they all hush and quickly disperse when she fully enters the room. Emily has an excited look on her face as she leans away from Sam.

 _Totally normal behavior_ , Bailey thinks.

She could not believe the "friend" that Embry and Quil mentioned, the man Emily is engaged to, is none other than _Sam Uley_.

The same Sam Uley that, last time she heard, abruptly broke off his engagement to Leah Clearwater this past winter. The very same Sam Uley her older sister and Paul graduated high school with.

Sam Uley, the alleged cult leader.

Her questions are endless. Why is Sam engaged to _Emily_? What happened to Leah? Weren't they like sisters?

Did she just spend her afternoon in the cult's headquarters?

She can't tell if the way Sam tilts his head with a glint in his eye is a good thing or a bad thing. She doesn't want to stick around to find out.

"I think I should go home," Bailey says in a rush.

It's almost comical how the group of hulking boys all glance at each other at the same time. She catches a subtle nod from Sam, and suddenly Embry is stepping forward, clearing his throat.

"I'll give you a ride back," Embry volunteers.

"But I'd really love to see you again tomorrow," Emily pipes up. She winks. "We should talk some more!"

Bailey slowly nods her head. "Uh-huh..."

"It was nice to meet you, Bailey," Quil says brightly. Unlike everyone else, he seems completely at ease.

She settles for a half-hearted wave.

"Bye, Quil."

Bailey spins on her heel and tries to look like she's definitely _not_ running away. She slides into the passenger seat and impatiently eyes Embry as he takes his sweet ol' time climbing into the car.

He makes an unnecessary show of checking his mirrors before he peels out of the driveway.

She grills Embry as soon as they turn onto the road. She _has_ to know more about that mystery man. She can reprimand herself in the mirror for it later.

"You guys all saw that in the kitchen with that guy, right?" At his hesitant nod, she presses, "And that… that was weird, right? That was definitely weird."

Embry shrugs. "Stranger things have happened."

Bailey huffs and crosses her arms, angling her eyes to the window.

"Nice deflection."

She watches the trees whiz past as she tries to think of a better method to get her answers. She taps her fingers against her biceps and rolls her eyes back to Embry's profile.

He deliberately keeps his eyes straightforward, the chicken.

"So that 'Jay' guy..."

"Jacob," he supplies.

"Jacob." She does a double take. "Wait, do you mean Jacob _Black_?"

Embry nods. "Billy's son, yeah."

Okay, so the mystery man was Jacob Black. She knew _of_ him but she didn't _know_ him. They never interacted until today.

Bailey remembers seeing him in the halls of middle school and occasionally around the rez, and all she really remembered about him was the near constant smile on his face, like walking sunshine. He definitely grew up and changed. _A lot_.

And yet… something about him still felt so intrinsically familiar.

 _"That_ was Jacob Black? What happened to him?"

Sam happened to him, obviously. But it seemed like something more. He was so _angry_.

Embry hazards a glance at Bailey. He looks _really_ uncomfortable with this turn of the conversation.

"He's… He had a rough start to the year. And, uh, a lot of hard things have just… piled on, you know, one after the other. It's been tough. Kid can't catch a break."

Bailey hums. "Is it because he joined your group? Like Paul?"

Embry sucks in a sharp breath and grimaces. "That's a big part of it."

"And you're not going to tell me what your group is actually about?"

His voice gets higher with each word. "We did. Outdoor exercising. Security. Remember?"

Bailey stares at him indignantly.

"You're a sucky liar," she mutters, turning away from him again.

Embry drums his fingers against the steering wheel in a show of nerves.

"Look, most people don't know what we're up to, and we like to keep it that way. We just let them make their assumptions about us. It's better this way."

Bailey carefully watches his reflection with skepticism.

"You all run around in the forest without shirts on. I've seen Paul, so I'm pretty sure the rest of you guys all beefed up out nowhere. You _do_ know people think you're all doing drugs, right?" The skin around Embry's eyes tightens. "Isn't keeping a secret like that and hearing all those things people say about you… painful?"

His face spasms. She takes that as a yes.

"It's better this way," he repeats in a murmur. But he says it in a way that sounds like he's trying to convince himself as well.

"For who?"

"For _us_. Outsiders don't need to get involved. It's need-to-know only now."

Embry's hands grip the steering wheel tighter to the point where Bailey can, to her shock, hear it groan under his fingers.

He grimaces and slowly unlocks his fingers, one by one, as he blows out a deep breath. Bailey watches him try to relax with a contemplative look on her face.

"So, what then? You guys took the red pill and everyone else took the blue bill?"

His eyes flash with something dark. "More like I was force fed the red pill, but yeah."

"Is this some kind of roundabout way of telling me we're actually in a computer simulation?"

Embry bursts out with laughter, and his face lightens up. _Good_. The melancholy expression on his face didn't suit the gentle giant.

"No," he chortles. "I wish!"

Bailey smiles. "That sucks. I had some really cool sunglasses I wanted to wear."

"Yeah, and I have some leather gear hidden away in my closet. Just in case, y'know?"

Bailey chews on her lip for a minute.

"Is the government experimenting on you?" she hedges.

Embry blinks. "No!"

"Radioactive spiders?"

"Stop trying to guess!"

Bailey huffs. She gives him a few more minutes of silence before more questions bubble up.

"So Jacob isn't usually so…" She trails off and fixes her face into an exaggerated frown.

Embry nods his head. "I've been best friends with Jake forever. Trust me. He's always been a nice guy. Always going out of his way to help people out and make 'em smile. If he were anything else, I wouldn't call him my best friend."

"But if he's so nice, why'd he storm out like he wanted to punch someone when he saw me?"

"Jake has to tell you, not me." The uncomfortable look on his face is back.

Bailey scoffs. "Didn't seem like he wanted anything to do with me at the end there."

Embry shakes his head and looks kind of angry. "He just… needs some time to wrap his head around everything, I guess. He doesn't talk to me about it."

Bailey throws her hands up in frustration. "But what'd _I_ do? I only saw him for like two seconds!"

"It's the damn red pill."

"You-" she cuts off, silently fuming. "I don't think I'm following anymore."

Embry sighs. "If we're gonna keep up Matrix talk-"

"Can we not?"

"Just humor me," Embry mumbles. At her silence, he continues. "Some people didn't want to be unplugged in the movie, right? Ignorance is bliss? Well, that's Jake in this case. He wasn't ready. None of us were ready. It's out of our control. Because once you're in, you're in for life and there's absolutely no turning back. And what _you_ want to know will put you in that scenario. So it shouldn't come from _me_. It's up to him."

"Why's it up to _him_?"

"Because that _thing_ that happened in the kitchen was between _you two._ I'm an innocent bystander." He lets out a derisive chuckle.

Bailey sighs. At least he admitted the kitchen thing was a _thing_ and not her imagination.

"Okay, so obviously whatever the hell that was back there gives me some kind of pass to the chamber of secrets." Embry snorts at her words. "But that was _after_. Why'd you invite me to Emily's if it's supposed to be need-to-know?"

Embry briefly glances at her and licks her lips. "Because it felt like the right thing to do."

They pull up to her house, and Embry echoes Emily's request for her to come by the house again.

"And just why the hell would I do that?"

 _To see Jacob again, of course_ , her mind supplies.

"Well, for one, you don't want to eat casserole anymore, right?" She's definitely going to search for her wallet as soon as she gets inside, but sure. "And you're curious about what's going on now, aren't you?" Two for two.

"Jake will come around eventually. He'll tell you what you want to know. I think he needs this. Emily has some good perspective too."

Bailey sniffs.

"Eventually," she mouths as she shuts the car door.

As Embry reverses out of the driveway, she gets the distinct feeling that "eventually" is really just code for "never gonna happen."

When his car disappears around the corner, Bailey hops into her own car and takes the eight minute drive in the opposite direction to the Clearwater's house.

She knocks on the door and prays that either Seth or Leah will answer, but the universe has a different idea.

Sue opens the door with a surprised look on her face. "Oh, hi honey! What brings you to this part of town?"

"I-... Auntie Sue, is Leah home? Or Seth?" Bailey asks.

Sue looks hesitant. "Neither of them are home right now. I'm sorry you missed them. Did you want me to let them know about something?"

"When will they be home?"

Now Sue looks _really_ frazzled. "I-I don't… I'm not entirely sure. Leah is always doing her own thing- you know, she's always been like that," she mumbles. "A-and Seth is probably out doing… what it is teenage boys get up to these days."

"Okay…" _That_ was weird. "Actually, Auntie, maybe _you_ can help me out."

"With?"

"Auntie, I'm going to be frank with you. I saw Sam today. With Emily. She's pregnant. They're engaged!" She pauses when Sue's eyes close. "Did you know that?"

"Yes."

"Does _Leah_ know?" she presses

"The entire rez knows. It's been the town gossip for weeks. That girl..." Sue trails off, looking severe as her eyes fly open. "I won't discuss it. I'm sure you'll hear it soon. We hear enough of it from everyone else."

Oh hell. It must've been worse than she thought.

"We've been trying to contact Leah since she came home for spring break. Is Leah… is she okay? Is she going back to school?"

"She hasn't been the same," Sue murmurs. "Since Sam broke it off last year, she never got any closure. Their engagement made it worse. And then Harry…" She shakes her head. " _Nothing_ has been the same. She's out of school indefinitely."

Bailey grabs her hands. "I'm sorry," she whispers. "Listen, I know Leah is infinitely closer to my sister than she is to me, but if she needs to talk or if there's anything that I can do while she's on the rez…"

Sue offers her a soft smile. "I'll let her know."

"Thanks. I'll… I'll let you get back to your day," Bailey murmurs, backing off of the porch. "Please tell Seth I said hi as well. And to come see me, if he wants. I miss him."

"I will, honey," Sue murmurs, shutting the door.

As Bailey walks back to her car, she glances up at the second story window when she sees movement in her peripheral. She catches a glimpse of a silhouette ghosting away from the window and a curtain swishing in its place.

She pauses, but there's no other movement that she can detect. She frowns.

"I'm losing my mind," she mumbles to herself.


	6. Spurn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to tip my hat to NBC's Hannibal S1:1 for an incredible dialogue exchange between Hannibal and Will that I NEEDED to paraphrase/use for this chapter. Kudos if you catch it.

Bailey spots Emily already waiting for her on the porch as she’s making a turn onto the drive of Emily’s quant little home. She pulls the gear shift into park and takes a deep breath.

“This is for answers and a free meal,” she tells herself as she slides out of the car. “In and out.”

Emily eagerly greets her at the door with a pleased smile. “You came back,” she says brightly, ushering Bailey inside and helping her out of her jacket. “I’m making roast chicken and rice. It should be done in an hour. Are you hungry? Help yourself to a muffin. I made plenty.” 

A girl with a curtain of straight black hair wearing tights and a knit dress is sitting at the kitchen island, looking engrossed in a pile of wedding magazines splayed out on the counter. She looks up at them with curious hazel eyes.

Emily gestures between the girl and Bailey. “Kim, this is Bailey Silver- the girl I told you about,” she says cryptically. “Bailey, this is Kim Connweller, a girlfriend of mine.” 

She turns to the stove and busies herself with pouring heaping cups of rice into a rice cooker, leaving the two girls to greet each other. 

“Nice to meet you, Kim,” Bailey says, settling in the seat beside her.

“Same to you,” Kim murmurs. Her gaze falls to Bailey’s arms and her mouth parts into an ‘o.’ “Those are really pretty. I've always wanted a tattoo, but I'm scared about jobs.”

Bailey glances at the clusters of peonies outlined in black ink along the length of her left arm. “Thanks. It’s a habit,” she explains with a shrug. “And restaurant kitchens are one of the few workplaces where they’re acceptable, so…”

Emily spins around with surprise on her face. “Wait a minute. You’re a cook?” Her jaw drops at Bailey’s nod. “And you’ve been tolerating _my_ cooking?”

Bailey waves her off. “I’m a living garbage disposal, so I’ll eat just about anything. But you cook just fine, I promise,” she assures Emily.

Emily playfully rolls her eyes and returns to messing with lunch.

“You’d look really cool in a wedding dress. The tattoos with some lace would look so good on you,” Kim enthuses. She taps a picture in one of the magazines in front of her. “Like this! We were just looking through some wedding inspiration pictures for Emily.”

“And for you, too,” Emily sings over her shoulder. Kim covers her stammering with a cough.

“Are you engaged?” Bailey asks, glancing at Kim’s hands. There’s no ring on her finger.

“Oh, no, but I like to fantasize about my dream wedding,” Kim replies with a wink.

Bailey hums as she peels the wrapper from a humongous corn muffin and plops a piece into her mouth. “Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

“Boyfriend! His name’s Jared. He’s so adorable,” Kim gushes, swiveling in her chair to face Bailey in her excitement. “And really nice. He’s coming by later, so you might meet him!”

Her movement makes her hair swish about, giving Bailey a clear view of a scar on the right of her neck. Dark puncture wounds in the shape of two neat crescents sit at the curve where her neck meets her shoulder. It’s definitely long since healed, but it looks gnarly.

Bailey points at her scar and asks, “Is he also a cannibal?” 

Kim blushes. "No, it’s part of the bond. Jake might give you one, too." She slaps a hand over her mouth and stares at Bailey with wide eyes.

Bailey stops chewing and stares at her incredulously. "Um, _what_?"

Emily laughs and turns around again to rest her hands against the island. “Kim! We’re supposed to let Jacob tell her,” she chastises.

Everything seems to always revolve around _him_. 

“No, no, hold on a sec. I want to know what you're talking about,” Bailey pleads. They have to tell her _something_. “You _both_ know about that… glowy deja vu thing?”

Kim slowly removes her hand and cautiously nods after a quick glance at Emily. “It was instant. One day Jared looked at me and-” Kim snaps her fingers. “I felt a connection to him. In my soul. Like I knew him from… beyond this plane _,_ I guess? He felt it, too."

“Isn't it romantic?” Emily sighs, resting her head in her hands. Her expression turns wistful as she glances at the magazines under her elbows. “Two souls, destined to meet. The perfect bond.”

“And you said that bite is part of it?” Bailey looks between the two girls. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Emily pulls on the collar of her shirt. "I have one, too, from Sam," she says. Old teeth marks are on her neck, positioned similarly to Kim’s but on the left. She leans in close and whispers, “It binds you to him. Think marriage, but deeper. _Soul_ deep. Just you wait. The tension will build and build, and then-” Her teeth snap together. Bailey flinches back in alarm. “It feels _so_ good. Like that feeling when you touch his skin or look into his eyes, but a million times better. Trust me.”

"Marriage. To a guy I met for five seconds flat," Bailey deadpans. "With a _bite_?"

Emily shrugs. "Magic," is all she offers.

"Sure." It still didn't make any sense to Bailey. "Did either of you know your boys before they bit you?" 

Kim shakes her head. “Not… really? I met Jared because he needed a tutor, and his old one dropped him because he was hanging around Sam. I’ve always had a crush on him- he was cute, that popular jock type, and I wanted the extra cash so win-win.” She rolls her eyes with a fond smile. “Two months in, I’m literally getting paid to watch him sleep. He got a special deal to get take home assignments when he couldn’t make it to school, which was pretty much _all the time._ _I_ did them all for him. Then one day he just happened to wake up from his never-ending nap, and finally _looked_ at me for once.”

“And you felt the connection,” Bailey murmurs.

“Yup! And we just stared at each other for a long time. My phone rang, and that kinda snapped me out of it, and I left him there looking like a gaping fish.” Kim pauses to laugh. “He decided to grace us all with his presence at school the next day, and he found me at my locker between classes and told me he was in love with me.”

Bailey blinks. “That was it. He was just in love with you? Just like that?”

“Mhm! He said we were meant to be together.”

“...And you just accepted that without question and let him basically marry you?”

Kim grimaces, but Emily answers for her, “She loves him, and she got what she wanted. What’s there to question?”

 _Just about a million things,_ Bailey screams in her mind. 

“Hold on!” Kim holds her hand up. “I didn’t know what the bite meant! I don’t think he understood it too much either. I just thought he had a weird fetish until this tingly stuff started happening with it!” Her eyes flit to Emily. “And I didn’t love him until later.”

“You loved him since the day you were born, you just didn’t know,” Emily cuts in. “But your soul knew!”

Kim shakes her head. “I told you already. Despite what he claims, for a long time it was _just_ sex between us after that,” she says. She turns back to Bailey. “When he told me he loved me, I thought he was joking so I played along. I told him he didn’t know how to handle a girl like me let alone _love_ me, but he asked me to let him prove it. I _was_ crushing on him at the time so I thought, why not? And, um…” A blush consumes her face as she absently touches her scar. “Let’s just say he proved me wrong about some things, and he gave me this in the process.”

“But what does it all actually _mean_?” Bailey asks.

“That you shouldn’t let him bite you until you know he’s endgame,” Kim replies quickly.

Kim didn’t have to tell her twice. She wasn’t going to let Jacob’s teeth anywhere _near_ her.

Emily gasps. “How could you say that? You _love_ Jared!”

“ _Now_ I do, but my feelings didn’t change overnight, and she shouldn't go into this blind like we did,” Kim argues. “I got to know Jared and it grew from there. That bite didn’t do _anything_ except tie my soul to him.”

“The bite _did_ change you,” Emily insists. She tuts at Bailey and Kim. “I was like you two before. I resisted at first because I didn’t understand it either. I couldn’t believe it, but Sam knew better. Once he bit _me_ I instantly knew we had true love, and now we’re happy as can be.”

“That's how you and Sam got together?” Bailey confirms.

“The moment he laid eyes on me last summer, he was in love with me. We were inevitable, and he was everything I’ve ever wanted in a man,” she murmurs, rubbing her protruding belly.

Bailey purses her lips. "But Sam broke off the engagement with Leah in December," she says slowly.

Emily looks at her with guileless eyes. “Yes, there was some overlap, but he didn’t love her anymore. He couldn't. He needed to be with _me_ , his perfect match,” she replies, pointing at herself. She continues, quietly, “I know Leah hates me for what happened. Her mother, too.”

“So he just…fell out of love with Leah, like how Jared suddenly fell in love with Kim.”

“Yes! We didn't do anything _wrong,_ ” Emily says, frustration bleeding into her tone. “Leah hasn’t spoken to me since. She’s so angry, but that’s why I didn’t want to tell her when it happened. She could never be happy for us; she was always such a hostile girl.”

Bailey stares at her skeptically. “Um, I think she _should_ be angry? I mean, imagine coming home and finding out your sister started hooking up with your fiance _before_ the break up _and_ she got knocked up by him!” she snaps. “I'd be pissed, too.”

Her sister would murder her if she _ever_ tried anything with Paul, broken up or not.

If she was really Leah’s sister, why did she ever get with him at all? How could she look at him that way, when he was with another woman? Why couldn’t she stop or resist, if she loved Leah so much?

“Of course you see it that way _now._ ” Emily lets out a humorless laugh and shakes her head. “It’s hard, you know, when people only see me as a homewrecker, but I’m _not_. It’s not my fault Sam chose _me_ and we’re perfect for each other. It was destiny. But soon you'll understand when Jake bites you, and then _we'll_ be more like sisters than anything Leah and I ever were.” 

If her sister treatment is anything like Leah's experience, Bailey doesn't want it. Still, she holds her tongue. 

Emily continues, “It’s not something you can get away from for long. The urge to be with your soulmate is too intense. Jake won't be able to keep this game up,” her eyes cut to Kim, “and you won’t either.”

Kim sighs like she's heard this many times before. “I already accepted the scholarship, Emily,” she says tiredly. “I’m not giving up a full-ride for a _boy_.”

"What's stopping you?" Bailey asks.

Kim eyes her carefully. "Sam said it wasn't a good idea to go."

Emily huffs. "It’s because of the _bond_ , not something Sam just said!” she snaps. “They need to be near us. Our touch and presence is crucial for the bond. If you’re away from him for too long, you don’t know what could happen! You could hurt him."

"We’ll just have to figure it out. He can visit me on campus as often as he wants if I attend an in-state school," Kim argues quietly.

"You shouldn't _want_ to be away from him at all! He's your soulmate!" Emily's voice turns reprimanding, and Kim seems to shrink under her words. "Jared's already given up so much for the tribe and he's committed himself to _you_. He's your life now. You need to accept that and settle down here!"

"I _do_ accept him, but I have things _I_ wanna do, too." 

Emily scoffs. "He needs you _here,_ taking care of him and having his babies-"

"Emily, come on," Kim groans.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. _Babies_?” Bailey slowly shakes her head. “Why are we talking about _babies_?”

“You're Jacob’s now, and that bite will claim you as his. The point of this bond aside from true love is to give him heirs!” 

Bailey almost screams and jumps from her seat. “Ew! EW! What _century_ is this from?” She looks to Kim for some confirmation, but the girl only twists her lips and gives a tiny shake of her head. “ _I'm_ supposed to do all that with _Jacob Black_? That's my destiny?! I’m only eighteen! And I don’t even know him!”

Emily raises a brow. “Your soul knows him, and I know you're attracted to him. I saw it.”

Oh, _that_ wasn't fair. Anyone who saw Jacob would find him attractive. He was handsome. He was like the sun. Water is wet.

“Obviously he’s cute, but it was more like… like he was someone long-lost. I'm not in love with him,” Bailey insists. Kim makes a sound of agreement. “And I don’t wanna pop out babies for him either!”

Emily shakes her head. “You’re both in denial.”

The more Emily talks, the more it sounds like _she’s_ the one in denial.

Kim opens her mouth to say something, but a smile abruptly blooms across her face. “Jared’s here,” she trills.

And as if she summoned them, a group three of rowdy boys barge into Emily’s house like they own the place, and their noise drowns out the tense quiet between them. Bailey immediately recognizes Quil and Embry. The third boy, she assumes, is Jared. She remembers him and Quil beating up on each other yesterday. 

Kim abandons the island to hurry over to her boyfriend. He’s adorable like Kim described, staring at her as she approaches with so much eagerness he almost vibrates with it. He ignores the quips from Quil and Embry in favor of kissing Kim like he hasn’t seen her in years.

Quil makes a gagging sound, and Jared pulls away with a scowl.

“Grow up, punk,” he growls.

Kim clears her throat. “Jared, I want you to meet Bailey,” she murmurs.

Bailey holds out her hand, but Jared lifts it to his lips for a kiss. She glances at Kim in alarm and receives an eye roll in return.

“He’s a chronic charmer,” she explains.

Jared laughs. “Nice to meet ya. You’re Jacob’s girl, right?”

“I’m not anybody’s girl, and it’s nice to meet you, too,” Bailey replies smoothly.

Kim loops her arm around Jared’s. “We should go study,” she says. 

Quil snorts. “Yeah, have fun ‘studying’,” he leers.

Jared shoves him for that, and Kim squeezes Bailey's hand before she leaves.

“Well, well, well, look who it is!”

Bailey turns to Quil and Embry crowd her with easy grins on their faces. They both snatch muffins from the counter and take inhuman bites as they stand in front of her.

Bailey nods at them. “Hey Quil, Embry.”

Quil whistles. “You have more ink than I thought! Badass!”

“There's plenty more hidden away,” she replies. “But I guess you wouldn’t know about something like that, since you don’t seem to wear clothes _ever_.”

Quil smirks. “Like what you see, sweetheart?"

“Not even in your _dreams_.”

“If you didn't catch me right after a run, I'd have more clothes on,” Quil says. “Besides, we don’t have as much of a selection as you do in the petite section.”

They really have no room to talk; it’s not her fault they’re both freakishly tall and seem to be allergic to weather-appropriate clothing! She rolls her eyes and plays along with him.

“I’m five foot eight, thank you very much! That’s taller than the average female height,” she argues.

“Oh, yeah? You still look shrimpy to me,” Embry teases.

“Sorry we can’t all be over six feet tall.”

Quil gestures at her unnecessarily large Mariners jersey. “You also dress like you either just rolled out of bed, or you’re about to get into bed. How are we supposed to go out on a date if you’re dressed like this?”

She gasps in mock outrage. “I dress for comfort! And we’re _not_ going out!”

“Your team choice is a _discomfort._ ” Quil flicks a piece of muffin at her forehead. “The Mariners suck, sweetheart.”

She comes up short on a good comeback and purses her lips, feeling her cheeks heat up in embarrassment. In truth, she had no idea about any sports teams… she just picked up the shirt at a thrift shop because of the pretty turquoise color. 

“Got ‘er there,” Embry chuckles.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” she grumbles. Her hands rest on her hips. “So, where’s your boy? You promised me answers.”

Embry tsks. “I didn’t promise anything. I only said he'd come around _eventually._ ”

Quil guffaws around a mouthful of muffin and reaches over to grab another one. “He’s probably still out sulking somewhere. It’s his new favorite hobby,” he says.

Fantastic.

Emily claps her hands to get their attention. “Lunch is just about ready," she says. Her eyes to turn to Bailey. "You staying?”

“Sure,” Bailey replies. _As long as there’s no more baby talk._

Emily pulls two large trays of assorted chicken pieces from the oven and serves up everyone with a healthy serving of rice on the side. She chatters about her day and some things she needs help patching up around the house.

The boys listen attentively and eat like they're starved. Bailey hardly gets halfway through her plate before the two are getting up for seconds. She wonders how Emily affords to feed them all. They're surely eating her out of her house.

“And Bailey is a professional cook!” Emily mentions. "Did you know that?"

Quil gasps. “ _You_ should cook stuff for us!”

“Only if you pay me!” Bailey smirks. “If you want my food, you’ll have to come to River's Edge. I start there tomorrow-”

Bailey flinches when she feels a stirring, like a sixth sense, and she suddenly _knows_ in her gut Jacob is nearby. She sucks in a sharp breath and drops the fork in her hand. Emily gives her a knowing smile.

_What kind of middle earth nonsense is this?_

Jacob appears in the front doorway, having to duck his head to come inside because of his height. Emily, Quil and Embry get a friendly acknowledgement from him.

He gives Bailey a stoic onceover and abruptly turns away, effectively snubbing her. He heads to the stove to make his own plate and sits in the furthest chair from her. If anyone else notices his behavior, they say nothing. It's infuriating. 

Bailey scowls and turns back to her plate. She was supposed to be head over heels for _that_ jerk? As if. Her supposed soulmate could act like such a brat! 

“So what are your thoughts on skinny dipping in the ocean tonight?”

Bailey looks up from a bite of chicken halfway to her mouth and stares up at Quil in disbelief. He gives her a smirk and a wink.

Maybe he _did_ notice Jacob’s bratty behavior.

Emily looks absolutely scandalized. “Quil,” she gasps.

Bailey jabs her fork at him. “First of all, where do you come up with this crap? Second of all, we're not gonna happen in this lifetime. You act too much like an annoying brother.”

Quil leans forward excitedly. “But maybe in the next?”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Bailey mutters.

“So it must’ve hurt then!”

Bailey sighs. She already knows what’s coming. “What did?”

“When you fell from heaven.”

This time Embry leans back with an annoyed groan. “Seriously? In front of my chicken?" he complains.

Bailey shakes her head. “You didn't listen to any of the advice I gave yesterday!”

It’s Jacob’s laughter that makes everyone pause at the table. He’d been stoically sitting, pushing around his food and pointedly avoiding eye contact with Bailey. 

Something about the sound of his laughter and the crinkling of his eyes makes warmth spread through her veins. His entire face lights up, like there’s a miniature sun behind his skin.

Jacob briefly locks his gaze with her and immediately clamps his mouth shut when he realizes his slip up. She offers him a wink, but one quick glance at everyone else (who’s suddenly very interested in volleying their gazes between the two of them) and he’s back to glaring at his plate.

“You can talk to me, you know. That’s why I’m here. To _talk,_ ” Bailey says.

“I don’t have anything to say to you," Jacob grumbles.

Bailey scoffs. “But Embry said-“

Jacob’s eyes flick up to hers. “He was wrong. Just drop it.”

“Jacob!” Emily hisses. “What is wrong with you!”

Bailey tips her head back to laugh. “ _Wow._ I guess we’ll see pigs fly before we ever become friendly.”

“I don’t find you that interesting,” Jacob shoots back.

She rolls her eyes. “ _Oooh_ , _burn."_

Jacob’s mouth twitches like he’s trying to hide a smile, and she counts that as a win.

* * *

Four days in and Bailey fears she'll never get used to her early schedule. 

She has to wake up two hours before the crack of dawn every morning (and she does it with a groan and a cup of coffee glued to her hand) to get ready for her morning shift at River's Edge. 

With three cups of coffee and a prayer she manages to throw herself into the rush of the busy kitchen to get her tasks done each morning without too much trouble, but as soon she gets home she makes a beeline for her bed. She hasn't been able to stop the incessant yawning either.

As if on cue, Bailey yawns _again_ as she breezes through chopping up some vegetables, and it's the kind of yawn that cracks her jaw and makes her eyes water. She reopens her eyes, and a tiny plastic container of fish and chips is being held level to her face. She leans back in surprise and stares up at the head chef smirking at her.

“Take your fifteen, fresh meat,” he says.

Bailey nods absently and grabs up the container as she makes her way outside. The sun is _finally_ out and the air has warmed up just a bit more, so she sits on the trunk of her car and shovels fries into her mouth.

She's overcome that gut feeling again, and nearly drops her food when she sees Jacob, barefoot and casually walking further down the parking lot like it was no big deal. And, of course, he seems completely indifferent to the weather like his other friends.

“Ditching school?” she calls out.

Jacob definitely glances at her out of the corner of his eye and keeps walking as if she didn’t speak. Just like he’s been doing for the past several days. Unlike his friends, she could never get a word out of Jacob.

Quil and Embry faithfully come by to visit her at the restaurant, whether it’s during her lunch break for a quick chat or to pick up some grub of their own. They’re always excited to see her, and the feeling is mutual.

Conversation and jokes flow between them easily, but of course, there were hiccups too. Namely a hiccup that was over six feet tall and named Jacob Black.

He treats her like she has the plague. This isn't anything like how Kim or Emily described. 

Any joking between her, Embry and Quil immediately dies whenever Jacob decides to darken the mood with his presence. He would glare at the two boys with wordless accusations in his eyes, and the two would reluctantly scoot away from her and claim they had to ‘go patrol’—whatever _that_ means.

Jacob would turn his eyes on her for one split second and dismiss her in the next, following after his two cronies without a word.

It’s absolutely ridiculous, and the routine is getting old pretty fast.

Bailey plunks her food on the trunk and shoves her hood over her head, rushing after him. When she finally catches up and falls into step beside him, she literally has to jog just to keep up with his long strides.

“Jacob. Seriously. How long are you gonna keep this up? Can’t we just talk like adults?”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Jacob grouses.

Bailey scoffs and touches his arm and _boom_. The restless bees under her skin are back tenfold. From the way Jacob stiffens and is suddenly motionless, she figures he felt the same sensation.

He shrugs away from her with a sneer.

Bailey pulls her hand away and gestures at his arm. “I think there’s plenty to talk about,” she argues, crossing her arms. "We have a connection, Jacob."

“You _can’t_ touch me.”

She nods in acquiescence. “Okay, fine. No touching. Are you finally ready to talk about all this?”

Jacob stubbornly shakes his head and hisses, “Stay away from Quil and Embry. From all of us!”

Bailey stops short. Where did _that_ come from?

She retorts, “We hang out! We get along! So what? What does that have to do with this thing between us?”

“There is no _us_ , and they don't know any better,” he growls. 

“What do you think I'm gonna do, Jacob? Huh? I'm not hurting anybody. We're just friends. What could I _possibly_ do to them? Or you?” Bailey throws her hands up. “God! I don't know who hurt you, but I'm _not_ that person. And I hardly know any of you for that matter-”

Jacob makes an inhuman, gravelly noise in the back of this throat, and his eyes briefly flashes gold. He suddenly looks bigger and frightening when he shouts, “EXACTLY! You don't know me! This _connection_ means nothing. It's not _real_ , and I'm not gonna let it control me! Just. Stay. _Away.”_

Bailey jumps back in fright from his booming voice. The muscles in her back and arms coil tight, and she’s not sure if she wants to punch Jacob in the throat or run away from him. Her eyes prickle, but she ignores it and tries to swallow down her fear.

“What was _that_?” she asks in a trembling voice. She wraps her arms around her middle, as if that could provide some kind of protection against a giant like him.

Even Jacob looks shocked at his own outburst. He quickly reigns in his unsettling expression with a clench of his fists and a harsh swallow. He looks horrified.

“I'm sorry. Don’t… please don’t look at me like that. I won’t hurt you. I swear,” he begs. Oddly enough, she believes him. “I didn't mean to do that. You don’t understand-”

“So help me understand, Jacob!” Bailey cries. “If you don't want anything to do with this thing, that's fine! But you don't need to be an asshole about it! I don't understand where any of this is coming from.”

She stops when she feels absurd tears roll down her cheeks. She slaps her hands over her eyes in mortification. “Godammit.”

“What are you DOING?”

The unexpected shout makes Bailey jump. She peeks through her fingers and sees Quil and Embry making their way across the parking lot. They're right on time for their usual rendezvous, but they both have dark scowls on their faces, looking just as menacing as Jacob did a minute ago.

Quil stands in front of her and shoves Jacob back. Embry stands beside her, rubbing her shoulder and murmuring if she's okay. She nods absently and stares at Jacob over Quil's broad back.

“Making a girl cry, Jake? That's _not_ cool,” Quil growls.

Bailey furiously scrubs at her face. “M'fine, Quil. He just scared me for a second. It's okay.”

“It's not okay!”

Quil tenses up and takes a step forward like he’s about to hit Jacob and Bailey panics when Embry’s blazing arm circles around her waist. He yanks her off her feet and walks backwards several paces.

“Wait!” she shouts.

Quil freezes, glancing at her over his shoulder.

“Guys, please- you can’t do this here. I- I’ve had enough. Getting answers isn't worth all this,” she whispers. Her eyes flit up to Jacob's. "You got your wish. I'm backing off. So get out of here."

Jacob looks stricken. “Wait, I really am sorry. I didn’t mean-”

“Shut up. You heard 'er,” Quil snaps at him.

Bailey gives Jacob’s wounded expression one last glance before pats Embry’s arm to get him to release her. She takes a deep breath.

"You two shouldn't come around here to see me anymore, either." She holds her hand up when Embry goes to argue. "Talk to _him_."

She turns away from all of them and tries to ignore how _wrong_ it feels to see them all look so upset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a lot of last minute edits, so there may be typos... I'll give it another read and fix them later!!


	7. Fold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the reviews! So much to unpack in this chapter. It used to be way longer... I whittled it down as much as I could. Eek! I'll check for typos later.

It's the terror that flashes across Bailey's face that almost makes Jacob completely lose his resolve. It makes his blood run cold knowing that _he_ caused that fear. She got a peak under the veil and she was _afraid of what she saw._

His mind is instantly flooded with all the rumors people on the rez whisper about the pack. About how they all suddenly grew so large and intimidating, like monsters. It's the rumor he hates the most. It simply goes against everything that he _is._ He _fights_ the monsters. He _protects_ people.

In one fell swoop, he proved the rumors to be true after all. And it's painful. Her fear is _painful_. He never wants someone to look at him like that again-

No. This is good. _This has to be a good thing._ She'll go away, and he won't have to deal with this imprint anymore. He won't have to be forced to endure her presence, to love her without his permission. His mind won't be able to trick him into thinking he's happy. It has to be a good thing.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Jake?” Quil growls, getting into his face. "Did you tell her to stay away from us? That's not your call!"

“What the hell are you two doing, hanging out with her? I told you not to!” Jacob snaps back, still reeling from his own actions. He turns his scathing gaze on Embry. “And you, latching onto her so quickly after the fallout with Bella? You were almost as upset as me!”

He told them to stay away. He _told them_ , and yet he would still catch them (everyday!) hanging out with her when they _knew_ how much he didn't want anything to do with the imprint. Why are they doing this to him?

“She’s not Bella,” Embry insists, exasperated. “She’s different. I know she’s different. I can feel it.”

Jacob scoffs. “How, Em? Explain to me how!”

“She’s an imprint. _Your_ imprint. That alone makes her pack. And she treats us like we're normal even though we made it obvious we're not. Do you know how quick she was able to pick up on things? We didn’t have to convince her at all— she already knew we weren’t the trouble everyone assumes we are. That’s rare, man.” Embry turns hard eyes to Jacob. “We _need_ that. _You_ need that.”

He did. He _did_ , but not like this. He couldn't accept it if he was forced to fall in love with a stranger against his will.

“Yeah, so quit being a dick to her all the time,” Quil chimes in.

Jacob sneers at him and spits, “What would _you_ know about it, Quil? You weren’t here when it all went down before. You don’t know what it was like firsthand and you _don't_ want to get caught up in something like that. We don't let people in for a _reason_.”

“So there's no love lost between Bella and me. Who cares? Don’t make _your_ fears _my_ problem,” Quil retorts. “I’m not gonna let being a wolf or _you_ stop me from doing what I want, either!”

His words sting, and it makes Jacob lash out. “What exactly am I stopping you from? Getting into her pants?” He regrets the words as soon as he says them.

Quil’s fist slams into his face like a sledgehammer. Before he can right himself, a hand curls into the collar of his shirt and yanks him backward. He shouts in surprise and sputters as he falls to the ground with an audible thud, clutching his burning nose. The tang of blood hits his tongue, and he can feel it gushing down to his chin.

Jacob squints through involuntary tears and lifts his eyes until he meets Quil’s wintery ones.

“I’m talking about being her friend, _not_ trying to get in her pants. We’re just joking with each other, but you wouldn’t know a thing about that, would you?” He crouches beside Jacob’s head and whispers, “And if she ever _did_ invite me in her pants you’d better believe I’d consider it like a _gentleman_ , fuck you very much. But I’m glad you think so highly of me, Jacob.”

Quil stands with a sniff, his eyes daring Jacob to get up. Jacob opens his mouth to speak and Quil snarls at him, jerking forward as if he means to attack him again. Still acclimating to being a wolf (and despite how happy he was joining), he still has his moments with his temper. 

When Jacob doesn’t move, Quil straightens with a sneer and turns on his heel. He knocks his shoulder against Embry’s as he brushes past him.

“Quil...”

Quil waves off whatever Embry tries to say and jogs up the street, vibrating as he goes. His exit is marked with the distinct sound of denim tearing and four pawed feet pounding against the forest floor.

Embry turns to Jacob with a sigh and sits on the hood of Bailey's car. “What are you doing, man?” he murmurs. “You're taking this way too far.”

Jacob sits up with a growl, dusting himself off. “I’m trying to protect you guys from making a mistake and getting hurt.”

“Are you trying to protect us, or yourself?”

“Both,” Jacob snaps. “We don’t know her, and you're just letting her _worm_ her way into your lives like nothing! She doesn't know us. She's an outsider, just like-”

“Cut the crap, Jake. This isn’t the same situation as Bella’s and you know it." Embry frowns. “Nobody's getting hurt or abandoned here. It's the imprint you're worried about. Just say it.”

Damn Embry and his intuition. He was too good at his job. Always right to the point. It makes Jacob want to scream.

Jacob pounds a fist against his chest. “I’m not gonna give in and become a lovesick zombie because of some stupid legend Sam loves to preach about,” he snarls. “ _That_ part of me can’t be taken away too! It’s not my choice! We _just_ met. It’s unnatural and I want no part of it! You shouldn’t take part in it either by bringing her around! You'll make it worse!”

“Who says it’s not your choice?” Embry asks.

Jacob scoffs. “Sam! He always goes on and on about how she won’t be able to resist me and she’s meant to be mine. Like- like she’s property or something! I don’t wanna _own_ somebody! How is that true love?”

“Didn’t the legends say you can be like friends, too? Or siblings? Her protector?" Embry asks. “It’s supposed to be a choice.”

“Yeah? Tell that to Sam. He thinks the legends got a lot of things wrong,” Jacob sighs. “And look at the track record, man. It's only been love at first sight for them.”

Embry purses his lips. “Jake, you keep saying a lot of ‘Sam said this’ and ‘Sam said that.’”

“What’s your point? He's the one that would know best. He was the first one to imprint, and he helped Jared get through it when it was his turn.”

Embry pauses for a moment, like he's gauging whether or not he should say something. “Well, it sounds like Sam is the one making up all the rules about this stuff despite what the legend says,” he finally tells him with a shrug. “What if it’s just something he says to make himself look better because of everything that went down with Emily and Leah? To save face.”

Jacob stares at him for a second, wondering if he heard his friend right. His mouth pops open. “ _Embry_. Holy _shit_ , dude. That’s a big accusation.”

“What? You’ve _never_ thought about it?” He raises a brow when Jacob can’t think of anything to say. “Look, man, I’m just calling it like I see it.”

“That’s... intense.” Jacob can't even imagine how Embry could jump to such a conclusion.

Embry shrugs again. “Remember two weeks ago, when you were pissed about us not understanding you despite all of us sharing a mind?” The reminder makes Jacob feel a twinge of regret for saying that to his best friend, but he nods. “Well, I'm _really_ paying attention now. We all got that instant replay of you seeing Bailey for the first time, and I think you’re misunderstanding what imprinting is and what it can do for you.”

Jacob squints his eyes. “Oh?”

Embry nods. “I don’t think ‘the universe’ decided anything for you. I think your souls knew each other, like way before you were even born in this lifetime and all your other lifetimes,” he says. 

That makes Jacob blink a few times. “Em, you have to know this sounds like some kind of reincarnation fairytale nonsense,” he replies. 

“Really? We transform into giant wolves, Jacob,” Embry deadpans. He rolls his eyes. “Can you really say you don’t know what I’m talking about?” He jabs a finger in Jacob’s chest as he speaks. “Tell me you looked that girl in the eye and _didn’t_ feel some kind of recognition. Like you _finally_ found something you didn’t remember you lost. I _heard_ your thoughts. I saw it!”

Jacob vividly remembers his first thought when he made eye contact with Bailey:

_Oh. There you are. I’ve been looking for you._

He purses his lips, refusing to answer, but he can’t deny Embry’s words anymore. He backs away with a huff. So he knew her soul. So _what_? 

“Doesn’t that mean something? If I’m right, and soulmates is a thing beyond our wolf crap, then imprinting _has_ to be something else,” Embry insists. His voice gets more fervent as he speaks. “We’re descendants of spirit warriors and they could access some kind of spirit realm. Maybe imprinting is a part of that spiritual magic stuff. Did it _feel_ like love at first sight when you saw Bailey?” Jacob shakes his head. “Maybe it’s just helping you see who your soulmate is clearer. Like spirit realm goggles or… or a GPS.”

Jacob snorts. “Spirit realm goggles? Are you watching that anime again?” he asks.

Embry sucks his teeth and curls his hand back to his side. “Yu Yu Hakusho is a good series, and that's the best I could come up with.” He sighs. “But I'm serious about that imprint stuff. Just think about it, Jake. You can't keep treating Bailey like this.”

“Embry-”

“And I'm not gonna stop talking to her either, so you need to get over yourself,” his friend says with a scowl. He shoves his hands into his pockets and walks off without another word.

Jacob lets him leave without a fight, but he does think about Embry's words.

He _is_ right about not feeling love at first sight, but it didn't occur to him until his friend brought it to his attention. As soon as Jacob was able to break that intense eye contact with Bailey he put all those thoughts into a box and threw it away, afraid of what it all meant. Afraid that, if he was around her too much, he could exasperate it and lose himself to the imprint without realizing.

If Embry was right about everything else, nothing really was happening with the imprint. Jacob's feelings didn't change. And he didn't know what to make of that.

Maybe he had a malfunctioning imprint. Maybe his love-zombie mode would sneak up on him like a late bloom. But Sam couldn't be making this up. _Could he?_

* * *

Jacob barges into Leah’s home without any preamble. No one else is home; it’s just Leah that peeks over the couch and stares at him indignantly as he approaches. In fact, he makes his way over to the couch and barely gives her enough time to fold her legs and move her bowl of popcorn out of the way when he plops down. 

Leah opens her mouth, probably to read him the riot act, but he beats her to it by blurting out everything Embry told him about imprinting. He watches silent fury bloom on her face, distinctly reminding him of an approaching hurricane as he keeps talking. 

She abruptly stands when he finishes, and he has to scramble to save the popcorn _and_ block her path before she can stomp out of the room. “I’m gonna kill him,” she hisses.

“It’s a theory, Leah,” Jacob tries to reason. He knew she wouldn’t take it well, but he needed another opinion. He didn’t want it to be true. He thought she would reject the entire thing. “How can you believe that right off the bat?”

Leah pins him with her stormy eyes. “Theory? A THEORY?” she shouts. “Sam throws out his stupid alpha commands like they're _candy_. He's always been a control freak. I wouldn't put this kind of shit past him. Get out of my way!”

Jacob doesn't budge. “What are you gonna do when you see him? You can't know it's true!” 

“It _is_ true. I know Sam better than any of you. I _dated_ him. He'll do anything to get his way,” Leah argues. 

Jacob struggles to come up with _something_ to contradict her beliefs. “Then how do you explain Jared and Kim? _He_ was instantly in love with her.”

Jared and Kim had it smooth sailing with their imprint. The same night following Jared’s sudden declaration of love, he marked her with a bite. That night seemed to play on repeat in Jared’s head constantly, and the rest of the pack had to suffer through it every time. His thoughts were always filled with _Kim, Kim, Kim._ The pack knew _far_ too much about Kim than they would’ve liked.

And they all knew Jared never looked her way before the imprint happened. It was ridiculous. And yet, somehow, they were perfectly in love just like Emily and Sam. Jacob didn’t want to be next, despite Embry’s theory.

The fury is instantly doused from Leah’s expression, and her face scrunches up. “Was he though?” she asks in a light voice.

“What do you mean, ‘was he’? We all saw it through his eyes.”

Leah rolls her eyes. “Jared follows anything Sam says like he’s some prophet. Never ever questions him.” She shrugs. “What if he was just following Sam’s lead because he didn’t know any better?”

Jacob shakes his head in disagreement. “But he _does_ love Kim.” It was as painfully obvious as if he wrote it in the sky.

“Yeah, we all know,” Leah mutters under breath with a shudder. “But Jared imprinted on Kim almost seven months ago. He never talked to the girl before. He definitely knew _nothing_ about her. If Embry’s right, what if after all this time passed Jared actually got to know her and fell for her _for real_?”

“How would we know it’s not the influence of the imprint?” Jacob asks.

“Sam is under the impression that imprinting is for procreation, right? You’re all supposed to drop everything, be in love and have a bunch of genetically superior puppies.” Leah snorts at her own words like she can’t believe what she just said. “Well, Kim’s still determined to go to college. Jared has been secretly saving up to buy her a car so she can visit the rez whenever she wants, despite Sam's protests. Does that seem like Kim and Jared are chomping at the bit to pop out babies?”

Jacob purses his lips. “No?”

“Is that how _you_ feel when you look at Bailey?”

“No…”

The fury is back in Leah’s expression. “Then it’s not the imprint, and Sam is a fucking liar,” she spits.

She tries to force her way past him, but Jacob grabs her wrist before she can make it very far. Leah vibrates with blind rage, and her eyes flicker yellow as she’s forced to face him again. She struggles to free herself, but Jacob refuses to let her go without a good reason.

“What is your problem, Black?” she growls.

“What's the game plan here, _Clearwater_?” he shoots back. “You're gonna go to Sam, tell him he's a liar, and then what?”

She scoffs. “I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Right after I bitch slap him into next week!”

“You can't just do that,” Jacob insists. “It's like you said: he's the alpha. Even if it's true, you can't do anything to him. You'll never get the chance.”

 _“You_ can,” Leah snaps, ripping her arm from his grip. Her eyes light up with a feverishness. “ _You’re_ supposed to be the fucking alpha. Not Sam. You can stop him if you really want to by taking over!”

Jacob shakes his head. “No, Leah. I don't want to be alpha. And we can’t confirm if all that is true. Why would he admit to something like that?”

“It _is,_ and you're the only one who can do something about it!” Leah screams, pushing his shoulders. 

Jacob shakes his head again. He couldn't lead the pack. He _couldn’t_. It was too much responsibility, and he already had enough to deal with. He could hardly keep it together as it is, and being alpha would be a disaster. Just like the rest of them, it was a birthright he never wanted, and would probably never be able to fully step into.

“I can't," he whispers. 

Leah curses him. “You fucking… You bastard! You goddamn bastard! You can't do this _one_ thing for me? The solution is _there_. Right fucking _there_ and you…” She squeezes her eyes shut and violently trembles in place.

He knows how badly Leah wants this to be true, so she can finally have some peace of mind, some closure, some retribution- just _something_ out of the entire mess between her, Sam and Emily. 

Jacob tries to comfort her the only way he knows how, but she slaps his hands away. “Why doesn't anybody fucking _listen to me_?” she lashes out. “What is it gonna take to get you to believe me?”

“Leah, come on…”

Leah shoves him back again with a snarl. “Do you know what he's gonna do if he finds out that you or me or Embry knows about him? The _real_ him? He'll do everything in his power to shut you up! If you're in his way, he'll get rid of you. Just like he did to me.” Her eyes bore into his. “Just like Bella did to _you_.” 

“Don't say that,” Jacob growls. 

“Why?” Leah snarks. “You know, for somebody who cares about his free will so much you seem to be perfectly content to continue being Isabella Swan’s _slave_!”

He clenches his jaw. “You're just angry, Leah. You say mean shit when you're angry.”

“Is it mean, Jacob? Or is it just the truth?” she asks with a sneer. “Swan was only ever interested in what you could _do_ for her, and she threw you away as soon as her vampires came back! And she's _still_ trying to keep you in her back pocket. Open your eyes! You kiss her ass just as much as Paul and Jared kiss Sam's!”

Jacob _knows_ Leah is trying to redirect her anger at him since she can’t get to Sam. Or she's just trying to antagonize him into doing what she wants. He knows she’s not trying to hurt him, and part of him can now dimly acknowledge that maybe she’s not entirely incorrect with her assessment about him.

Goading has never worked on Jacob before, and really any form of manipulation is intolerable to him, especially if it involves Bella. At this point, bringing her up feels like a low blow. 

He spins on his heel to get away from Leah and the subject of his childhood friend, but this time she reaches out to stop _him_. 

“Wait,” she says tiredly. She sighs. “That wasn't… It’s not you I’m angry at. Not entirely anyway.”

Jacob takes a deep breath. “I know,” he murmurs. “Don't worry about it. I probably deserved it. I wasn’t nice today either.”

The rage still licks behind her eyes like waves, but he can visibly see her walls come up and hide away that invisible hurricane. It's almost frightening to see her expression smooth out so quickly. 

Leah drops her hands to her sides. “What happened?” she asks warily.

Jacob was dreading saying anything about it. When he finishes relaying _that_ part of his afternoon, Leah just gives him an ugly stare. She glances longingly over his shoulder where the exit is but ultimately returns to her place on the couch. She picks up the popcorn bowl and chuckles to herself.

“You _are_ a dick,” Leah confirms, echoing Quil's earlier words. 

Jacob rakes his hand through his hair in frustration and sits on the rug by her feet. “I don't know what to do and I think I’m doing everything wrong,” he complains. 

“No shit! Ya think?” Leah sneers. Her voice takes on a mocking tone. “‘I don’t wanna be a lovesick zombie! Woe is me!’” She rolls her eyes so hard he can almost feel it. “Did you hear yourself back there? You get so belligerent you don’t even realize how much of a jackass you’re being just to avoid imprinting.”

Jacob's head snaps up. “You hate imprinting, too!” he argues. 

Leah shakes her finger at him. “Let’s get something straight. I hate how imprinting has _affected_ me, and how Sam, and possibly by some degree Emily, chose to allegedly handle it. It’s _not_ the same thing as hating it. We clearly don’t know what this thing really is or what it’s for. Maybe it doesn't have to be a bad thing.”

Jacob frowns. “But I don’t know if I want anything to do with her at all.”

“Embry said it best. She throws a different kind of energy that the pack might need right now. _Especially_ you, but it’s your choice,” Leah says. “If it helps, _I_ know her. Seth knows her. She babysat him for years. She’s practically Paul’s sister. Her grandmother was on the Council! Quil and Embry like her a bunch.”

He didn’t need her life resume. “I already know all that,” Jacob mumbles.

Leah throws a handful of popcorn at him. “Then hear her out before you make the assumption that she’s randomly in love with you! Did you even let her talk about how _she_ feels?” she demands. At Jacob’s head shake, she scowls. “Bailey has stronger ties to us than Swan ever could, and she actually _cares_ without a hidden agenda. She's a good friend, and you would _know_ that if you actually tried to talk to her like a regular human being!”

“Wow. A ringing endorsement from _the_ Leah Cleawater,” Jacob deadpans. He swats away more popcorn hurled at his face for that comment. “Alright, I get it! Enough with the projectiles!” 

“And what exactly is being a dick doing for you anyway, huh?” Leah challenges him. “Did you wake up today and feel good about how you’ve been acting all week? You’re lucky Quil didn’t murder you. Or her sister, if she were here.” 

Thinking about those tears rolling down Bailey’s cheeks, knowing it was because of _him_ and him alone, makes Jacob want to curl up in a ball and hide. He settles for pulling at his hair again, desperately missing his long ponytail he used to tug on when he was stressed. 

Leah shovels popcorn into her mouth with a thoughtful look on her face. “I’m actually surprised she didn’t hit you. That girl’s a slugger,” she says around a mouthful of kernels. 

“I’m pretty sure I scared her out of it,” Jacob grimaces.

Leah chuckles. “Yeah, she’ll turn into a big crybaby if you yell at her loud enough.” 

He drops his head in defeat. “Fuck,” he mutters to himself. "About this Sam thing…”

Leah closes her eyes and sighs. “I'm not going to do anything, Jacob, and I don't wanna talk about my problems with you.”

“You _can_ lean on me, Leah. We're pack, and… I already shoved a lot of my crap on you anyway. It's your turn.” 

“I'll lean on you when you decide to put your big boy pants on and become alpha,” she says tartly. The storm is briefly back in her eyes until she turns away from him with a sniff.

Jacob sighs. He knows a losing battle when he sees one. “Well, what about Kendra? I think you should just call her, Leah. You can talk to her instead since I can't do anything helpful.” 

Leah shakes her head. “And what am I supposed to tell her, Jacob? She’s gonna want answers! Answers that I can’t _give._ Sam ordered us all to keep our mouths shut about it, remember?! And _this_ -” She smacks her tattooed shoulder, “is why all of her problems started!”

“Right, you can’t tell her,” Jacob says slowly.

“That’s what I just said!”

“But you can _show_ her,” he continues. He managed to get Bella to figure out his secret by jogging her memories about the tribe's stories. Surely Leah could do something similar without breaking Sam's gag order.

Leah stares at him for a second, and her eyes widen. “Jacob Black, you sneaky son of a bitch,” she murmurs. 

He smirks. “It's my specialty.” _Or Sam just needs to word his commands better._

They both jump when Leah's cell phone belts out the Kim Possible theme song. The screen lights up with “Kendra” and a series of smiley faces. Jacob watches it ring for a beat before he turns his eyes to the she-wolf who's staring at the phone like it's going to eat her.

“This might be your chance, Leah,” Jacob murmurs. 

She shoots him a quick glare and snatches the phone off the coffee table. After a few seconds of deliberation, Leah accepts the call. 

“Hey,” she says in a tiny voice.

“FUCKING FINALLY!” 

Leah leans away from the phone with a grimace. That scream even hurt Jacob's ears. “Kendra-”

“Two months, Lee! Two months of silence and the first thing out of your mouth is just 'hey'." Kendra manages to perfectly mimic Leah's voice. “Are you kidding me? I could strangle you!"

“I’m sorry, Kendra." Jacob blinks in shock; he doesn't think he's _ever_ heard Leah apologize before. “It’s just, with my dad… and there’s more disappearing shit going down on the rez… I couldn't bring myself to talk for a long time.” 

Kendra heaves a long sigh. “Shit, Lee. _I’m_ sorry. I've been through this shit before and I didn't consider…” she trails off. “You can talk to me, babe. I'm in your corner. What's going on?”

“I have so much I wanna tell you,” Leah whispers. 

Kendra murmurs, “Then tell me. I’m all ears.” 

“Not over the phone. It’s too important.” 

“Lee?” Kendra whispers.

“When you land, just come straight to my house. I’ll be waiting. We can talk then,” Leah says. 

“What? _Why_? Are you okay?” 

“Not really,” Leah mutters.

“Fuck…” There's a pause and another curse. "Okay. Okay, but that’ll be like three weeks from now.” 

Leah shrugs. “I’ll suck it up until then,” she whispers.

“You’re freaking me out, you know that?” Kendra says. "Why can't you just tell me something now?”

“I _can't_ ,” Leah stresses. “I have to go.” 

“But we barely got to talk!” 

“Three weeks and I'll explain _everything_ and we can talk all you want. Please, Kendra.” Leah holds her breath after that. 

Kendra's shriek of frustration sounds like a banshee. “Fine. FINE. Three weeks,” she finally huffs.

Leah hangs up and sinks into the couch like all the energy is drained from her body. Several minutes pass before she takes a deep breath and rubs her eyes.

“What are you still doing here?” Leah asks.

Jacob blinks in surprise. “I'm… being supportive?” he says, suddenly unsure.

“Shouldn't you be somewhere else?”

“I should?" he asks.

Leah reopens her eyes and stares at him sharply. “Oh my god, Jacob. An apology to Bailey might be nice! Did I not just give you a perfect example?” She throws another handful of popcorn at him. “Maybe some kind of _explanation_? Tell her you won’t be a douche again? Is _any_ of this resonating with you?” 

“Yes,” he murmurs. 

Leah grabs the remote and turns her eyes to the television. “Excellent. Then get out. A re-run of the Bachelor is coming on in a few minutes,” she says.

Jacob fumbles as he stands. “Wait! Should I… see her right _now_?” 

Leah throws her hands up in exasperation. “What kind of question is that? Are you _busy_ right now?!” She scowls at him. “When _else_ -”

Jacob is already out the door before Leah finishes her sentence.

* * *

He arrives on Bailey’s property within minutes. With his lupine hearing, he can pick up on the sound of boiling water and an ethereal voice crooning over an ambient beat from the radio. He catches a lucky glimpse of Bailey as she passes by a window overlooking the kitchen sink.

He doesn’t see her again until she returns with a large pot, and watches as she drains the boiling water into the sink. Steam obscures her from his vision for only a few short seconds. When it dissipates, the pot remains in the same tilted position in her hands, but her eyes are locked outside of the window. On _him_.

Jacob balks. _Can she... see me?_ he thinks. _There’s no way._

The sun had already set, and with a lack of street lights near the property it was certainly pitch black to the human eye. He made sure to stay within the cover of the trees, just in case. There is no way her eyes should be able to detect him from the distance he stood at, and yet-

The jingle of a ringtone makes Bailey yelp and turn her eyes away. Jacob nearly melts into the ground with relief.

“You are insane,” Bailey hisses to herself. She backs away from the window with a scowl and presses a cell phone to her ear. “Hi, Ken.”

“So I just got off the phone with Leah, and there's something weird going on with her,” her older sister says. “She refuses to tell me what's happening until I see her in person. Have _you_ seen her?”

“She wasn't home when I came by the other day,” Bailey replies. 

“Convenient," Kendra snips. “Anyway, did all my stuff come in?”

“Yes,” Bailey hisses. Jacob hears a pot slam with more force than necessary. “Yes, I received all three _thousand_ of the boxes you shipped! How you ever fit this many things into your tiny ass dorm room, I will never know.”

“I don’t want to hear any mess from the clutter queen,” Kendra shoots back. “And don’t bother unpacking my things. You never put anything in the right place, and you don’t even try to be neat.”

“They’re in the way of everything,” Bailey whines.

Kendra scoffs. “I will literally be home in three weeks. You’ll survive until then.”

“You’re a pain in my ass. I already had to deal with enough nonsense today.”

“Care to elaborate?”

Bailey mutters, “Not really. Just some stupid drama during work. I cried a little. It wasn't a big deal.”

Jacob cringes. He should've figured this would come up. 

“What the hell were you doing crying at work?” Kendra demands. 

Bailey groans. “I got into an argument. I couldn’t help it. You know how I get.”

“But what were you arguing about? And with who?”

“It won’t make any sense, and you’re not gonna like it,” Bailey sighs.

“Try me.”

“If I tell you, you’re not allowed to interrupt until I get the whole story out!”

Kendra lets out a long, annoyed sigh. “...Fine.”

“I sort of hung out with that group Paul joined up with. Sam Uley’s posse,” Bailey says in a rush. She hesitates when her sister whisper-screams over the speaker. “...When you asked Billy to check up on me, he sent some of _them_. That’s how we met. And they were actually nice and _nothing_ like what people say about them-”

“Yes, because I'm sure making you cry is the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you,” Kendra replies sarcastically. “Which one was it?”

Bailey hesitates. “Billy’s son, Jacob.”

“ _Jacob_ is in that group?!” she shrieks. “This is _so_ _not_ what I had in mind when I was talking to Billy!”

Jacob wholeheartedly agrees. He really had no idea what his father was thinking, sending a bunch of wolves to her door that day. It was asking for trouble. 

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t my intention to become friends with some of them when I answered the stupid door, but here we are.” Bailey passes by the window again. "But Jacob is the worst one of the bunch. He saves all his attitude for _me.”_

Jacob can't stop the whine that his wolf releases. It's exactly what he didn't want her to say. He hates the fear he created in her mind. He doesn't want to elicit that kind of response from _anyone._ He doesn't want people to see him as the monster he tries so hard to separate himself from.

“Does Paul have any involvement in this?” Kendra asks.

“I told you I haven’t seen Paul since the funeral,” Bailey says. “I'm pretty sure he's avoiding me.”

There's a pause. “Are you fucking kidding me? He’s your brother! This is his job yet he’s conveniently never there when you _really_ need him to!”

Bailey sighs like she's heard that before. “I know you miss him, and he’s disappointed you a lot but-”

“That has nothing to do with it! Let me call you back.”

“Kendra, seriously. I’m fine. It’s all _fine._ Don't-”

The line clicks dead. Bailey groans.

Jacob hears more noises emit from the kitchen, and he catches another flash of Bailey passing the kitchen window. She disappears from his line of sight again, and he’s only able to track her movements by the sound of her soft footsteps against the floor. He shifts back to his human form and pulls on a pair of cut offs.

A pair of French doors opens to the garden in the backyard, and Bailey walks out with a basket slung over her arm.

He skitters further back into the line of trees as he watches puffs of vapor leave her lips as she takes a deep breath. She jerks the zipper of her sweater up and crouches over bushels of leafy greens, plucking them by the handful.

 _It's now or never,_ Jacob tells himself. As soon as he takes a step forward, Bailey abruptly stands up with a sharp intake of breath and a curse.

She spins, clutching the collar of her sweater. Her wide eyes dart around the general area where Jacob is still hidden and now frozen in shock.

“Jacob?” she calls out.

His own voice gets stuck in his throat as his feet and brain decide now, of all the times, to stop working.

Bailey waits for a few tense seconds and eventually shakes her head. “Definitely, _absolutely_ insane,” she mutters to herself, snatching up the basket. She turns on her heel, and hurries back inside.

His feet move forward of their own accord as his ridiculous wolf instinct demands to chase after her retreating back, but the hairs on his arm raise in alarm. He turns his head in time to catch a glimpse of a silver wolf with gleaming yellow eyes lunging at him.

Jacob soars through the woods at the force of the wolf’s body slam. He lands in a heap and the wolf is on him in seconds, sinking his teeth into Jacob’s shoulder and roughly shaking with a growl. Jacob shouts in pain, managing to twist just enough to land a solid punch in the wolf’s snout. It releases him with a shocked yelp and backs away.

The pause gives Jacob enough time to phase, tearing yet another pair of shorts to shreds, and he enters the stream of shared consciousness with a slew of profanities.

“ _Paul, what the FUCK!_ ” Jacob shouts. He shakes his massive head in disbelief when Paul bears his bloodied fangs at him. “ _What are you DOING?_ ”


	8. Suture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick content warning: So there's mild sexual content in this chapter. When I say mild, I mean MILD. Implied might be more accurate.

_Paul watched with heavy lidded eyes as the blonde he picked up from the bar tried to swallow him to the hilt like her life depended on it. It was a brave attempt. Blondie didn’t pause her labors when his cell phone began to trill one of those generic ringtones on the pillow next to him._

_His dog, a rescued red doberman affectionately named Penny, pricked her ears at the sound. She made a move to sit up from her spot by the fireplace, and Paul clicked his tongue in a warning. Penny settled back down with a quiet huff._

_Keeping one hand tangled in the crown of Blondie’s hair, he reached with the other to pick up his phone. He rarely got phone calls on the thing unless it’s his boss asking him if was available to pick up a new gig at a construction site._

_He froze when he read the numbers on the tiny screen._ _Her name wasn’t saved in his phone— it was too tempting, too painful— but he knew that number by heart._

 _He should’ve seen this coming. Of course_ she _would get around to calling him because of this imprint disaster_ _with Jacob. He had half a mind to pummel the kid for his poor behavior toward Bailey, but he swore to himself that he wouldn’t insert himself into those girls’ lives anymore. But everyday when he’d get a replay of some new stunt Jacob pulled, the urge got worse and more persistent._

 _He picked up after the third ring_ _and clumsily pushed the buttons until he got the right one— the stupid keypad was too small for his large fingers._

 _Kendra spoke over him before he could get a word out._ _“What’s up with this asshole making my sister cry, Paul?”_ _she demanded. Always straight to the kill._

 _“Kendra,” he choked out._ _His mouth couldn’t form any other words._

_Blondie briefly came up for air. “It’s Katie,” she told him. He ignored her._

_Kendra_ _scoffed. “She said Jacob Black is bothering her– made her_ cry. _We live on a tiny ass rez and she conveniently hasn't seen you_ once _. That's literally impossible unless you're actively avoiding her. What the hell is up with that?” she berated in a nasty tone. “Do you even care? Or were you just pandering when you showed up to the funeral?”_

 _Paul bristled at her accusations_ _and sat up ramrod straight, pulling Blondie off of him in the process. She choked and sputtered._ _“You know that’s not true,” he replied angrily._ _How could she say that? He loved Diana with every fiber of his being, like she was his mother._

_“Do I?” Kendra snapped._

_“Yes,” he growled back._

_Blondie crawled into his lap and clutched to him like cling wrap, whining, “Get off the phone.” She pressed sloppy kisses to the tendons in his neck and tweaked his nipple in her hand. That hardly did anything for him now that his attention was diverted._

_It was impossible for Kendra not to hear through the speaker. She laughed, loud and long. When she spoke again, her voice was raspy._ _“No matter what happened between us, I would think Bailey is still your sister and you would look after her. Especially when I’m not there! Or have you changed so much you can’t even do_ that _anymore_ _because you’re too busy with some bitch?”_

Click _. The dial tone was almost deafening._

 _Her words ignited a fire in his brain. Kendra always knew what words to use to get him riled up. Questioning his character was a surefire way to make his rage bubble over._ _Paul was_ boiling.

 _His phone fell to the floor with a clatter_ _, and he pushed the girl away from him without much care. Penny jumped to her feet, suddenly alert._

 _As if he’d been alpha ordered, the rational part of his brain shut off and he mechanically stood up and burst through his front door. Within seconds, he phased into his wolf mid-jump off the porch and broke into a dead sprint_ _alongside the river near his home. He ignored Penny’s excited barking behind him; he knew she would never leave his porch without permission._

_There was only one thing on his mind: He was a fucking failure of a brother._

_In the cover of the night he tore through the forest, rounding the bend that led to the isolated plot of land the Silver household sits on. As he cleared the edging of the trees, his vision went red when he spotted Jacob’s back._

_He opened his jaws and lunged._

* * *

Jacob flinches when Paul clears his mind with a shake of his head and renews his snarling. There’s no reasoning with Paul when he’s craving violence. He had no idea _this_ was Kendra’s intention when she hung up on her sister.

She sent a freaking _mercenary_ after him.

 _"I should’ve done this to you a long fucking time ago,”_ Paul growls, lunging for Jacob again.

They clash with teeth and claw. Jacob might be the larger wolf, but Paul has the upper hand with more fighting experience and the seamless bond with his wolf. The pack could never find a clear distinction between Paul and his wolf; they always seem one and the same. That, and his wrath fuels him. 

In seconds he rolls Jacob on his side in a submissive posture, and Paul’s teeth once again sink into the bloodied scruff of Jacob’s neck. He doesn’t release his hold even as Jacob bucks and writhes to get free.

 _“Let GO,”_ Jacob shouts.

Paul’s answering snarl is long and hair-raising. Jacob can feel the vibrations of it echo through his bones and it makes his ears flatten on his head. The unbroken stream of wordless rage coming from Paul is so thick in the air it could be cut with a knife. It bores into his skull like a drill.

There’s a _pop_ , and another wolf enters the stream of consciousness. It’s an endless chant of _Emily, Emily Emily_ and flash images of her nude form twisted in different positions on blue sheets. 

_Ugh_. The perks of a pack mind.

“ _What’s going on?_ ” Sam thunders in that booming voice of his. Being alpha gave him some weird sixth sense about all the pack when they were phased, and he could always tell when someone was up to no good.

“ _Nothing to see here, Sam,_ ” Paul snarls. “ _Go back to fucking your_ perfect _little imprint._ ”

Sam bristles at the tone, but there’s a smirk in his voice when he asks, “ _You wanna try saying that again?_ ”

Paul freezes, and for a split second his mind goes blank. A frenzy of anger tumbles forth right after, and he’s spitting a slew of profanities at Sam. Through all of it, he doesn’t ease his grip on Jacob’s neck once.

Resentment oozes from his pores, and Jacob can only guess what triggered such a response from him. Paul balks under any form of authority, and there’s always been an animosity between him and Sam ever since the redheaded leech started causing trouble near their lands back in March. 

Oh _great._ Another pissing contest with these two.

“ _Shut up, Jacob_ ,” they bark in unison.

Paul continues, “ _I’m teaching this pup a lesson. It’s none of your business_.”

Sam scoffs. “ _Here’s a better lesson since you like to cause so much trouble:_ **_you’re on patrol by yourself for the rest of the night_** ,” he commands. “ ** _Hop to it._** ”

“ _Are you serious?_ ” Paul shouts.

“ _You can’t stop him from seeing his imprint. They’re made for each other and it’s none of_ your _business to interfere with the consummation of that_ ,” Sam snaps right back. 

Jacob stills at his words. He's got it all wrong. “ _Sam, that’s not- I don't-_ ”

“ ** _Do as you’re told, Paul_** ,” Sam interrupts.

Jacob can feel the tension in Paul’s muscles as he stiffens under the order. His jaw works around Jacob’s neck like his body doesn’t know what to do. Paul eventually settles on applying more pressure on his bite and that makes Jacob cringe.

“ ** _I said-_** ”

Paul talks over Sam, and his voice sounds strained. _“You're coming here tomorrow to clean up the mess you made because if you don’t…”_ Jacob yelps as Paul thrashes him a bit. _“I’ll tear your fuckin’ head off.”_

 _“Alright! Jesus. Ease up, Paul.”_ That was his intention all along, if the brute would have just _listened_ to him from the start.

Paul releases Jacob with a snarl and roughly shoves him with his shoulder. _“Get out of here,”_ he says harshly. Foam drips from his muzzle. The disobedience of back to back orders would take a strain on any wolf, but Paul always pushes his limits. 

Jacob jumps back with a petulant snap of his teeth and slowly backs away. Paul abruptly breaks eye contact and runs in the opposite direction, fully dowsed under Sam’s order with a head full of angry static. Sam leaves the mind link shortly after with a wave of satisfaction washing over his thoughts.

It leaves a sour taste in Jacob's mouth.

* * *

Jacob can hardly wait for morning to come, and he doesn’t sleep a wink as he waits until it’s an appropriate hour to return to Bailey’s house. And, of course, Paul is already waiting for him there with a permanent scowl on his face. The bags under his eyes are horrendous.

“You don't have to chaperone,” Jacob grouses. “I wouldn't hurt her.”

It’s obviously the wrong thing to say.

Paul rounds on him and cuffs the back of Jacob’s neck. “That doesn’t mean shit. You already fucked up with her, and you can still fuck it up.” He levels Jacob with a fierce glare. “ _Don’t._ ”

“I think I should just go home…”

Paul and Jacob turn to young Seth Clearwater standing a few paces behind them. His eyes flit to the side at their stares, and he fidgets with the sleeve of his sweatshirt uncomfortably. 

It was originally Jacob’s idea to bring Seth along primarily because he looked like he desperately needed to get out of the house (he’d only leave to go on patrol), and seeing such a happy kid look so depressed just didn’t sit well with Jacob. He’d been in his shoes just nine years ago, and he _knew_ how much the passing of a parent could take its toll. And how it never fully goes away.

Jacob eyes Paul for a second, and walks back to place a hand on Seth’s shoulder and squeeze it gently. Just like the rest of the pack, he heard what has been plaguing Seth's mind since his first phase. A small part of him blamed himself for Harry’s death just as much as Leah did. It’s a sore spot that the pack can’t manage to coax either of them away from.

The outing is an attempt to make Seth cheer up a little, even if it’s only for a few hours. Leah didn’t take Jacob’s methods for comforting _her_ very well, but she was all for this method for her baby brother.

Jacob waits until Seth meets his eyes. “Hey, man. We really think this would be good for you. Stretch your legs, hang out in some new scenery, you know?” he says.

Seth purses his lips. “I haven’t seen her in a long time. I… I look completely different now,” he argues.

“No way. She’ll definitely be happy to see you regardless. C’mon,” Jacob insists. 

With some gentle prodding, Jacob manages to get Seth to go up the steps. Paul gives Seth a wordless clap on the back and turns to knock on the door. 

“Aren’t you coming?” Seth asks. 

Jacob shakes his head with a small smile, remaining several feet away from the porch. “I don’t think I’ll be welcome.”

A handful of seconds later the door forcefully opens and Bailey rushes forward with a glare on her face. 

“What are you _doing_ here-”

She blinks a few times in surprise when she realizes Paul is the one standing in the doorway. Jacob is sure beyond any doubt that her anger was meant for him, and it makes him cringe. 

“Paul! I thought- you said-”

Bailey smothers whatever she was going to say as a smile blossoms across her face. She jumps up to throw her arms around his neck, and Paul, _heavy-handed and volatile Paul_ , catches her with an honest to god smile on his face too.

Seth and Jacob look on in shock.

“Why are you here?” Bailey asks in an excited voice. “I mean- not that I don't want you here. I _told_ Kendra not to bother you! I wasn't expecting-”

He shushes her and runs a soothing hand through her hair and kisses her forehead. He uses one hand to tuck under her chin and tilt her head back. His eyes dart between hers with an intense gaze. It’s a bewildering sight.

Bailey removes his hand in both of hers and holds it between them. She gives him a light squeeze and stares at their joined hands to avoid his scrutiny. “I’m _okay_. Promise. It wasn’t a big deal,” she assures him. “Seriously. You look like _you_ need some coffee more than me. You didn't have to come because Kendra made you.”

“I wanted to come. Kendra isn't the boss of me.”

Jacob has to hold back a snort. That definitely isn't true. Not in the least bit. As soon as Paul got that phone call, he was running like a leech was chasing after him.

“If you say so,” Bailey sings.

Paul awkwardly clears his throat. “Anyway, we wanted to help you with the heavy lifting of those boxes that came in,” he says.

“How did you know about that? And who’s ‘we’?”

“I saw the truck drive down the road. Never see many of those around here, and this is the only house on this end of the river besides mine,” Paul says, and he steps off to the side. “And _this_ is we.”

“Hey, Bailey,” Seth whispers. He shoves his hands into his pockets with an uneasy grin. 

Bailey gasps. “Seth? Holy crap, Seth!” She rushes forward, grasping his forearms as she looks him over in surprised delight. She has to lean back to see his face.

“Why did you grow up so fast? I was here just last summer! Where did your cute little squirrel cheeks go?” she complains. She pinches his cheeks, or tries to, but with time and an abrupt growth spurt his face had become more angular and slim.

Seth looks up helplessly at Paul, but he only offers a shrug and a grimace. “I’m not fourteen anymore,” he mutters with indignation coloring his tone.

“You’re still a _baby._ Babies aren’t supposed to grow up,” she insists. Her fingers flick his ear and she gasps in outrage. “And what’s this? An _earring_? You heathen! And you cut your pretty hair-”

“I didn’t _want_ to,” Seth whispers with vehemence. He deflates. “But it was for Dad, so…”

Jacob frowns. He and the rest of the pack had the hardest time trying to convince Seth to cut his hair. It was too long in his wolf form, enough so that it would snag while he was running on patrol and flop into his eyes. They could only persuade him to cut it when Leah was handed the scissors. 

_“Just think of it like we’re doing it for Dad,”_ she told him. It made him cry but he eventually agreed, and she cried with him while the rest of the pack watched in heavy silence as his locks got shorn in the Clearwater’s backyard. He didn’t act the same after that.

Bailey’s eyes soften as she nods. “You’re growing like a weed, Seth,” she murmurs. “What are they feeding you out here?”

He shrugs and gives her a wobbly smile. “Something in the water, I guess.”

“Yeah, like nuclear waste,” she mutters under her breath. She pulls him in for a hug, and the kid's so tall her head fits perfectly under his chin. “I’m so sorry about your daddy, Seth. Harry was… he was an incredible dad. To everybody. I know he loved you to pieces.”

Seth’s arms wrap around her tightly. “I miss him all the time,” he whimpers. 

“Oh, sweetheart. I know you do." She tilts her chin up and presses a kiss to his cheek. "Of course you do.”

“And Aunt Dee…”

Bailey's face spasms at the mention of her grandmother. She stares down at her feet for a second and turns her face back into the crook of his shoulder with a tiny nod. 

Jacob looks away, feeling like an intruder.

They don't move for a few minutes until Seth finally clears his throat. “I really missed you being around,” he murmurs into Bailey's hair.

She huffs. “Best damn babysitter in the world, right?”

That gets a quiet laugh out of him. “Yeah,” he says.

Bailey gently pulls away from Seth and watches him swipe his sleeve over his wet face. She laughs quietly to herself, running her knuckles under her eyes.

“Why are you all so weirdly toasty?” she wonders aloud. Her eyes flick up to Paul and she reaches out to take Seth's hand. “Come inside! I’ll make coffee and we can eat some ice cream for breakfast. And we can make Paul watch Dragon Ball with us. Do you still watch-”

Paul grasps Bailey’s shoulder from behind and flicks his chin when she looks up at him in confusion. She follows his eyes, and her breath catches. 

Jacob straightens when she spots him standing at the edge of the treeline. His eyes swivel away when he catches the apprehension in her gaze.

“I _knew_ he was around here,” she mutters sourly.

“He wants to talk to you,” Paul says in her ear. At the insecure shake of her head, he pinches her cheek until she bats it away. “I’m right here. I’ll come running.”

 _And I’ll kill him,_ his eyes scream when they flit to Jacob. Jacob swallows noisily.

Seth chirps, “Jake’s nice, Bailey. He’s really cool.” Bless Seth’s kind heart. He always saw the best in everyone, even when they didn’t deserve it.

Paul doesn’t let her go until she nods. "Fine," she mutters. "All the boxes are Kendra's. She's really particular about where her things go."

"I know,” Paul murmurs. With a jerk of his chin towards the door, Seth follows him into the house.

Bailey wraps her arms around her middle and watches Jacob approach with pursed lips. Her protective stance kills him.

“Can we take a walk?” he asks. He hopes it would loosen her up and work some of his own jitters out.

She watches him in silence for a few agonizing seconds, and Jacob wonders if she'll accept his request at all. 

Bailey sniffs and turns on her heel without a word, walking through the front door. She returns a minute later wearing combat boots and sunglasses. As she's pulling her arms through the sleeves of a thick flannel, Paul silently appears in the doorway with a death glare.

Bailey watches Jacob from the top of the stairs in silence and folds her arms again. “Let’s walk,” she says in a monotone voice. 

Jacob purses his lips. Her walls are going to be up for this. He walks a few yards, parallel to the treeline. Twigs and leaf litter crunch under Bailey’s boots while his steps remain silent. When he finally gathers the courage to speak, he stops walking and spins to face her.

“I’m sorry. For the other day. And all other other days,” Jacob says. “I was a jackass, and I’m really, really sorry.”

Bailey twists her lips and glances up at him over the rim of sunglasses. Her eyes dart between his own like she’s gauging his sincerity. She lowers her head with a short laugh. “This is so frustrating,” she finally responds.

“What is?”

She shrugs. “I just never know which Jacob I'll have to deal with at any given time. One minute you’re so nice, and the next you act like I’ve committed an unforgivable crime against you.” Her head quirks to the side. “I guess I’m getting nice Jacob right now. You're like a temperamental cat.”

Jacob nods and runs a hand through his hair. He couldn’t deny any of that. “When you looked at me yesterday… with _fear_... that killed me. It still does,” he whispers. His heart squeezes just thinking about it. “I don’t know how I let it get to that point. I wish it didn’t take _that_ to open my eyes to what I was doing. But I can’t keep this up anymore. That’s not me.”

“How can you expect me to believe that after you treated me like crap every chance you got!” Bailey challenges.

“I was just- I was doing that because-” He sighs in frustration and gives her a bitter smile. “I’m not going to make any excuses. I was afraid, and I took it out on you. You didn’t deserve that or anything I said. I really am sorry.”

A silence hangs between them. Jacob fidgets.

“Afraid of what?” Bailey asks.

Jacob turns his eyes down to his toes. He has _no_ idea how to have this conversation.

“Jacob, _you_ wanted to talk,” Bailey says sternly. She pulls her sunglasses to the top of her head and pins him with those yawning black eyes. “Everyone keeps telling me to wait to hear the whole truth from _you_. So just tell me what’s going on. No bullshit. I didn't have my coffee yet, and I want to get back to Seth and Paul.”

“I don’t know how to put this right… but there are forces at work here that are out of my control,” he says. 

Bailey nods slowly. “Emily said… we’re soulmates. I’m guessing that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“I was afraid of what that meant,” Jacob murmurs, reaching out. She doesn’t resist when he gingerly squeezes her tiny hand, and that insistent flutter returns just under his skin. “What _this_ means. We call it imprinting. I thought the universe was messing with my fate, controlling me. Again. And I didn’t want it to forfeit my choices for… for something that wasn’t authentic.”

Her gaze is transfixed on their hands. “It does feel a little intense. I’m just… very aware of you all the time,” she says. "And I feel stupidly excited. Or at last _something_ inside of me does. I guess that's my soul talking."

Jacob stares at her. How did she gather all of that before he did? Why didn't he just _listen_ to her before? He wasted so much time worrying.

“Whenever I see you, it’s like… I’ve met you before. Like in a distant memory,” he confesses. "It took me a while to realize that."

Bailey nods. “It's like my soul is screaming 'look, there he is!' Sort of childish," she mumbles. "Like we just finished playing the longest game of hide and seek or something.”

Jacob lets out a startled laugh. That's a funny way to put it. “I was going insane trying to avoid all of this because I thought it would trigger some love at first sight thing," he says. "That's what happened to the others."

“Yeah, Emily told me some details of what happened to her and Sam. And Kim, too,” Bailey adds.

“Would _you_ want to be with a stranger against your will?”

“No, but...” Bailey murmurs, “None of that sounds right to me. It feels wrong. I don’t think soulmates means I should automatically be in love because… well, I just don’t feel that way about you.”

“So you… you don’t feel the sudden urge to drop everything and get in a relationship with me?” he checks. 

Bailey rolls her eyes. “What? No!” Her eyes widen as she gasps. “Oh god, do you?”

Jacob sags in relief. “I thought I would, but no. I thought being around you more would make the switch flip but… nothing happened,” he responds. "And now I kinda feel like an idiot. Or our imprint is messed up."

Bailey looks relieved as well and closes her eyes. “If it’s messed up I’ll take it as it is,” she mutters under her breath. “But how is this happening? Why me?”

“Why do birds sing? Why’s the sky blue?” Jacob shrugs. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it. It just happened. I don’t know why or what it’s for. None of us really do. It’s part of the magic, I guess.”

“And is this the same ‘magic’ that also makes you over six feet tall and jacked?” she asks.

“Yes.”

Bailey purses her lips. “Is Seth… Is he in the group with you?” she asks quietly. At his nod, she throws her head back. “Baby Seth is in a witch cult.”

Jacob snorts. “We’re really not one of those. Far from it.”

“Well, what other reason is there to run around in the woods with barely any clothes on?” Bailey asks.

He only offers her an apologetic smile. 

“You’re not gonna tell me, are you,” Bailey says flatly. She wriggles her fingers out of his. “You want me to trust you, but you’re keeping all these secrets!”

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “That's a different can of worms I'm not ready to open yet."

“That’s not fair to _me_ ,” she insists.

Jacob grimaces. “Have you ever had a secret so terrible it could change someone's entire perspective of you in a heartbeat?” he asks. “If you ran away screaming right now, I couldn’t take it. I’m hardly accepting of all this as it is. I didn't want any of this to happen to me. I don’t _like_ this part of my life, let alone talking about it.” His eyes squeeze shut. “Do you know what it’s like living among people who will _never_ understand you? They just assume nasty things about us, but we all went through the most painful, horrific thing-”

Nope. Too much. 

He sucks in a deep breath and opens his eyes. Bailey's eyes are wide, darting all over his face. 

“Can you try to understand where I’m coming from?” he rasps.

Bailey is adamant. “Jacob… I wouldn’t _do_ something like that, and I don’t think I’ll run if you-”

“You wanted to yesterday. I saw it in your eyes when I…” He swallows. “When I scared you. That hardly scratched the surface of everything going on.”

“But I _didn't_ run. I only walked away because I didn't want you to fight with your friends,” she says quietly. Her eyes bore into his. “I’ll respect your feelings if you don’t want to tell me that part, even though it’s bugging the hell out of me.”

Relief floods through him. _Thank god._

“Besides, I could just ask Paul or Seth. They would tell me.”

Not with that gag order. Sam only made an exception for imprints. Jacob doesn't mention that part though.

“So what do you want to do now?”

“What do you mean?” Jacob asks.

“We’re soulmates, but we don’t know each other. I mean, I recognize your soul, and maybe we ran into each other in some other lives or whatever, but I don’t know the you _right now_. Does that make sense?” Jacob nods helplessly. “So there’s no obligation here, right? This imprint thing isn't forcing us to be together like you thought. We can call it right now and have nothing to do with each other.”

“Have nothing to do with each other,” Jacob repeats stupidly.

Bailey squints. “Isn’t this what you wanted from the start?” she asks.

Jacob purses his lips. “What do _you_ want?” he counters.

“I just wanted answers, and for the most part I got them so I don’t really _need_ anything else,” she replies with a shrug. “I think this stuff is cool-” She taps his forearm and he feels a brief spark. “Why wouldn’t I? It’s magic! But you don't seem to like it so… I’m fine walking away after this talk.”

Jacob presses anyway. “But what about Quil and Embry?”

Bailey frowns. “Look, if they want to keep coming around, I won’t stop them. And if you don't like _that_ , you can go ahead and shove it up your-”

“Can we start over?” he blurts out.

Bailey blinks rapidly. “Start… over?”

“I can’t erase this last week, and I know I’ve been doing everything wrong, but I wanna try. To be friends.”

“That would require you to be nice,” Bailey snarks. Okay, he deserves that. She pointedly stares at his shoulder where his tattoo is hidden under his sleeve. “You know, if we’re friends, you'll have to eventually share those secrets, too.”

“I really, _really_ want you to get to know me, the person, before I tell you anything else," Jacob says. 

Her face scrunches up at his word choice. “‘The person’? Is there… another version of you?” she asks.

Jacob grimaces, thinking of the restless wolf he briefly lost the reins on in the parking lot. “Think of it like Superman and Clark Kent,” he explains.

“So... you’re an _alien_?” Bailey whisper-shouts.

“No, no!” Jacob laughs. “That was just an example. Two sides, one coin type of deal.”

“That sounds like something an alien would say, but whatever,” she mutters. She looks up and eyes him suspiciously. “If you turn into an asshole again I swear to god-”

“I won’t. I promise,” he hurries to say. "So can we hit restart and just… try to get to know each other like normal people would? You know, hang out. Have conversations. And if we don’t get along, we just part ways.” 

Bailey eyes him for a minute and then takes a step back, and Jacob’s chest grows cold and hollow at her actions. Shit. Fuck. He messed up again. He deflates until she holds out her hand to him. 

“I’m Bailey,” she says. He shakes her hand and tries to ignore the tingle in his palm. “And I would really like it if you stopped interrupting me when I speak.”

“Jacob,” he responds. And then, “Sorry.”

”Nice to meet you. Again.” She appraises his hot hand in hers. “I think we’re way beyond the realm of _normal_ people getting to know each other.” 

“As normal as possible,” he amends.

Her brows draw together in a thoughtful expression. “So I plan to keep guessing what you are until you crack. You’ll tell me if I guess correctly though, right?”

Jacob's responding grin makes his cheeks hurt. “Sure, sure.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ending this one on a happy note. Happy holidays if you celebrate! I also posted an outtake of a future chapter on my [tumblr](https://musingsofvenus.tumblr.com/post/638485770937810944/jacob-wants-to-go-to-prom-quil-and-embry-make-it) called "Dance, Dance" if you wanna check it out! See you in 2021!


	9. Mute

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!! I'm speaking into existence that 2021 will be a fantastic year to all of you! I just want to give a really warm THANK YOU to everyone who decided to take a chance on this reboot in the disaster year of 2020. I hope this has been a nice distraction from the real world and will continue to be going forward!

Jacob always thought the inside of Diana’s home was like stepping into a greenhouse. When he would come by to drop off completed assignments and pick up the next set, he would gawk at all the plants that cluttered the kitchen and dining room area.

Potted plants hang from the ceiling and overgrown tendrils of green would spill over, long enough to brush against his shoulders. Fresh herbs sit in random clusters along the kitchen’s window sill and the shelving units on the walls. 

Jacob has never stepped foot past the kitchen before, as he’d only entered through the mudroom every other time, but he always found the space so calming and lush. Even if he were only there for a few minutes at a time.

Jacob takes the opportunity to observe the rest of the home as he moves large boxes with Paul into Kendra’s bedroom. There are other plants of varying sizes littered throughout the house, either on the floor or tucked in a nook. The entire house is fragrant with a crisp, floral scent.

He passes a door with a wooden sign hanging on it, inscribed with a child’s crude handwriting that reads _Bailey Rose._ The neighboring wall has tick marks that measure her and her sister’s height milestones from childhood. 

Having such an intimate look into the home of someone who is essentially a stranger to him, soulmate be damned, makes Jacob feel distinctly invasive.

Jacob continues walking to the last room across the hall. “Where do you want this one?” he asks.

Paul doesn’t look up from the swaths of colorful fabric he’s meticulously folding. “Just put it down by the door and open it,” he says absentmindedly.

His response makes Jacob sigh. Paul wouldn’t let him touch any of Kendra’s things inside the boxes until it was thoroughly looked through first. 

Paul descends on every box Jacob carries in like a man dying of thirst. He doesn’t seem to be aware of how much he’s been scenting everything, or how often he pauses to stare at something with a nostalgic look in his eyes.

Jacob won’t risk commenting on it. He backs out of the room and returns to the kitchen.

Seth is sitting at the kitchen island, listening to Bailey talk animatedly about her time in California as he leafs through her collection of Dragon Ball DVDs. She’s standing across from him, turning a tiny mill to grind coffee beans. 

Bailey pauses her story when she notices Jacob. “Do you want a cup?” she asks. 

“I’m good,” Jacob murmurs. He glances around at all the greenery with a smile. “It’s nice that you’re still maintaining all of Diana’s plants.”

Bailey looks up from her grinding. “Thanks, but she was actually maintaining all of them for _me_ ,” she replies. “All this is mine.”

“This is _yours?”_

Bailey responds with a hum and dumps the coffee grinds into a weird looking canister, and she pours boiling water over it. She seals the canister with an equally weird looking lid.

Seth spins on his barstool. “Bailey has a green thumb. I think she’s a witch,” he remarks.

Messing with that fancy coffee machine among all those plants, she certainly does look like one.

Bailey flicks a coffee bean at Seth and laughs at his squeak. “ _I’m_ the witch?” she asks indignantly. She gestures at the collection in front of him. “Did you pick a movie yet, punk?”

Seth looks torn and unfolds the pack, revealing five disks. “Jake, what do you think?”

“I like Pokemon more,” Jacob replies.

Seth gasps in outrage and proceeds to talk his ear off about his blasphemy. Bailey watches the kid go off on his rant as she holds back a smile. She presses the plunger of the pot and pours the coffee into a mug. 

Jacob only half listens to Seth as Bailey leaves them both with a wink. He follows the sound of her footsteps as she approaches Paul and hears her pause.

“Are you okay?” she murmurs. He can only guess she caught Paul getting wistful again.

“Are these coffee beans from Joe?” Paul asks instead.

“Yep,” she chirps. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

There’s a pause. “I don’t think I should be in here.”

“You’re the only one who has the patience to put her crap back in the right place.”

Paul lets out a soft chuckle. “Either way I have to go soon.” He stops when Bailey makes a sound of protest. “I have to let Penny out.”

“Why don’t you just bring her here?”

“Not today.”

“Will you at _least_ stay for ice cream?”

“...What flavors do you have?”

“Chocolate, oreo, mint chip-”

Paul groans. “ _Mint chip?_ You mean frozen toothpaste?”

“Grow _up_ , Paul! It’s a good flavor! Keep your wrong opinions to yourself!”

Paul chuckles again. “Alright. I’ll fix this bathroom handle, and then I really need to leave.”

“I’ll bring you chocolate,” Bailey squeals.

She returns with a skip in her step and breaks Seth’s tirade by offering him ice cream. His attention is immediately diverted.

“Can I have oreo?” he asks. 

“Of course you can, sweetheart,” Bailey says. She turns to Jacob. “What about you?”

“I’m not an ice cream guy, either.”

“Jake exclusively eats savory snacks and flat soda,” Seth cuts in with a smirk.

Bailey laughs under her breath. She gestures to something behind Jacob. “There’s a toolbox on that shelf. You mind giving that to Paul?”

Jacob gives Seth a noogie first, ignoring his wails of protest before he picks the toolbox from the shelf. He walks down the short hallway to hand it off and Paul accepts it without a word. 

Paul grabs a screwdriver first and slots the knob back into the door. He quickly replaces the screws and moves on to the loosened strike plate.

Jacob leans against the adjacent wall. “All this time I’ve known you and I never knew you had a dog,” he says.

Paul briefly glances up at him. “We’re not friends, Black.” 

Jacob’s lip twitches. “Yeah, but we _do_ occasionally share a mind.”

“It never came up,” Paul says in a clipped tone. He clearly wants to be left alone, but his response only makes Jacob more curious.

“You block us out on purpose. We hardly know anything about you.”

Paul sets down the screwdriver with a sigh. “And you talk too fucking much so we know too many things about _you_ ,” he snarks. “What do you want?”

Jacob glances around the room as he mulls over his next choice of words. Paul’s behavior, already an enigma to all who knew him, got even stranger for the last month. 

Between the white noise he releases at all times when he’s phased, they would get the occasional spotty image of a younger Kendra interacting with Paul. The ache behind it all only got worse since Diana’s funeral. Jacob could only think of one reason why.

“Kendra is your imprint, isn’t she.” It’s not a question.

Paul stiffens. “Yes,” he says. It’s surprising he actually admits it. Usually getting him to talk about anything remotely personal is like pulling teeth. Jacob jumps at the opportunity.

“Then why are _you_ avoiding her if you know she is?”

Paul glares. “Like you don’t know why,” he hisses. 

He does, but only partially. “Humor me.”

“Because she doesn’t deserve to be saddled down to _this._ ”

Paul pauses when Bailey returns with a bowl of ice cream. She says nothing, glancing between the two of them uneasily as if she can sense the tension between them. He murmurs his thanks to her, and she gives him a tiny nod. Jacob is once again surprised by this softer side of Paul.

Paul waits for her to walk out of earshot before he continues. “And she doesn’t deserve it either.”

“I wouldn’t do anything against her will,” Jacob says.

“Yeah, and that means jackshit coming from you,” Paul snaps.

Jacob bristles. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Talk is cheap,” Paul says through his teeth. He turns his attention back to the strike plate.

Jacob mulls over his words. Paul isn’t necessarily _wrong_ with his opinion. Talk _is_ cheap, but Jacob is always a man of his word. He doesn’t like what he’s being accused of, but he can see where Paul is coming from. If any of the wolves imprinted on either of _his_ sisters, he’d give them a hard time too.

“You’re a good brother, Paul,” Jacob murmurs.

Paul briefly glances up at him, but he doesn’t respond.

The guy comes off as eerily quiet until his terrible attitude rears its ugly head, but he always seemed like he had high principles. It’s the reason why Jacob decides to tell him his next words. 

“This might be a little intrusive,” he begins. “But I think I might have a solution to your imprint problems.”

“You don’t know the first thing about my problems or any of the circumstances,” Paul warns.

“Hear me out,” Jacob says. “Embry told me an interesting theory yesterday…”

He repeats everything Embry told him. The different lifetimes, their ancestors’ intuition with the spirit realm, and even his crazy ideas about Sam. He tells him about Leah cosigning everything Embry said about Sam’s alleged cover up scheme, although there’s no proof of any of it.

Paul is likely avoiding imprinting for the very same reasons Jacob was– the fear of losing his free will, and being forced to claim someone like property in the name of love. But throughout his entire monologue, Paul says nothing. 

Jacob looks down at the floor. “I think… you don’t have to go out of your way to avoid the imprint because it might not be what Sam says it is.” 

Paul’s continued silence makes Jacob babble. “I’m sure you overheard, but I didn’t feel that love-at-first-sight thing with Bailey. I don’t even feel the urge to bite her or… or do any of the other stuff. So I think you’re off the hook if you didn’t feel any of that either, but does that really mean Sam’s a liar? You knew him the longest aside from Leah. Do _you_ think he’d do something like that?”

Again, Paul says nothing.

Annoyed, Jacob looks up. “Are you gonna say anything-” The words get caught in his throat. 

Paul is still crouched, stiff as the dead, staring up at Jacob with incendiary irises as the blood vessels in his eyes burst in tiny red blooms. Jacob can hear Paul’s teeth and jaw grinding under the pressure of him trying to force his mouth open. Something crunches, and a trickle of blood runs down from his nose. The sight makes Jacob’s own blood run cold.

Paul looks like he wants to say _something_ , but by the look of the agitated muscles clenching in his cheeks and jaw, an invisible tension prevents him from doing so. 

It could only be because of an order. _Sam’s_ order.

“Does Jared know?” Jacob whispers.

It takes a solid minute, and violent tremors rack his frame as he moves, but Paul manages a tiny headshake. For his efforts, a harsh breath escapes him, and a fresh line of blood spills from his nose.

Paul grabs the doorknob to shakily stand, crushing it in his grip and ripping it out with a chunk of wood in the process. Splinters fall at his feet.

He stares at the mangled thing in his hand and angrily tosses it to the floor. Backing away on uncoordinated feet, he knocks over his bowl of ice cream.

Jacob reaches out to steady him, but his hands get smacked away. “Paul-”

Paul snarls at him. “Until you learn how to put that blue blood to good use, you’d all better keep a tight fucking lid on…” He chokes. “...on what you just said, and put it out of your minds.”

He staggers through Kendra’s bedroom and climbs out of the window in a heap. A silver wolf appears as he stands, and it disappears beyond the trees. Jacob watches him go and curses aloud.

Bailey hurries into the hallway shortly after. “What’s wrong?” she asks. She glances at the mess of ice cream and splinters on the floor and looks back to Jacob. “Where’s Paul?”

“He needed to leave,” Jacob says. “I have to go, too.”

She immediately looks suspicious. “Witch stuff?”

If it were any other time, Jacob would have laughed. “Witch stuff,” he confirms.

“Is Seth gonna suddenly disappear when I go back to the kitchen?” Bailey asks warily.

“No, no,” he assures her. “You two have fun. Seriously. I’ll, uh, come back to fix the door another time. I’m really sorry about the mess.”

Jacob rushes to the front door and catches a glimpse of Seth staring at him with a slack jaw. Seth’s mouth quickly clicks shut, and something too fast for Jacob to process flashes through the kid’s eyes like lightning.

It makes Jacob uneasy, but he doesn’t allow himself to spend time to think too much about it. He’s got bigger things to deal with first.

He heads straight for Quil’s house, where he knows Embry will be hanging out at this time of day.

Quil lives with his grandparents, right above the tourist shop that his grandfather, Quil Ateara III, runs. 

It takes Jacob longer than he would’ve liked to get there, but he had to forgo running on four legs for his car. Quil’s home is in the middle of the main part of town, where tourists and residents alike milled around far more often. 

The challenge is much higher for any of the wolves to be properly concealed in this area, and Jacob couldn’t risk the exposure. Still, he drives with the worst jitters and nearly bursts from his skin several times just from the adrenaline alone. He hardly remembers to pull the gear shift in park as he throws himself from the Rabbit.

Jacob barrels by Old Quil with a hasty greeting as he goes to the back of the store to the staircase. He takes the stairs four at a time and squeezes through the tiny second floor hallway. 

Jeez, Quil was bulkier than _him._ How did he navigate through here everyday?

He barges into Quil’s bedroom without knocking. As he thought, Embry and Quil are squashed together in his room. They’re sitting on a tiny orange rug with Playstation controllers in their hands. Their eyes are glued to a Tekken combat match on Quil’s tiny box TV.

“What are you doing here, Jake?” Quil demands without moving his eyes away from the screen.

This is the longest Quil has ever been angry with Jacob. He _never_ holds a grudge. He usually gets over things within minutes. The hostility makes Jacob feel defensive, but he doesn’t have time for his friend’s attitude right now.

“I just came back from apologizing to Bailey and it’s better now,” Jacob says, exasperated. He turns his attention to Embry. “You were right. About _everything_ , man.”

Embry looks up with wide eyes, dropping the controller in his lap. Before he can respond, Quil cuts in.

“You didn’t apologize to _us_ ,” he emphasizes.

Jacob resists the urge to strangle his best friend and expels the compulsion with a blustering sigh. “I’m sorry to you guys, too.” 

“ _For?”_ Clearly Quil wants the full apology tour. 

“For running you guys off from Bailey all the time. For being an asshole.”

Quil raises a brow. “And for disrespecting women?”

“I think that falls under asshole, but yes. For disrespecting women, too.”

Quil defeats Embry’s character in the game and sets down his controller with a goofy smile. “Apology accepted!” he chirps. “Now, what’s up?”

“How do you know?” Embry asks, all business.

“I, uh, told Paul,” Jacob stutters.

“ _And?”_

“Well, he didn’t say anything about it… because Sam has some kind of order on him that stops him from talking.”

Embry jumps to his feet, knocking his controller to the ground. “I knew it! I knew something was weird with Sam!” he shouts.

Jacob holds his hands up. “Dude, keep your voice down!”

“Did you tell Leah?” Embry demands in a quieter voice.

“I came here first, but she doesn’t need any convincing. She believed it the first time.”

Embry nods. “Okay. What are we gonna do?”

“ _We_ are going to shut up about it, like Paul told me to. Or we might end up like him!”

Quil also jumps to his feet. While the Embry and Jacob spoke, his head snapped between the two of them as he tried to keep up with the conversation. “Woah, woah, woah. Hold up. _What_ are you guys talking about?”

Jacob groans, recounting the very same story he told Paul with Embry occasionally chiming in with more tidbits. Quil’s eyes widen by increments, and by the end of the tale his eyes bug out so much Jacob is slightly concerned.

“Are we, like, rebels now?” he asks in a tiny voice. The excitement building behind his expression makes Jacob nervous. 

“ _No_ ,” Jacob says as emphatically as he can. 

Quil pouts. “Renegade pack,” he whispers. 

“No!”

“Jake, we have to do _something_ ,” Embry urges.

“Like what?” He already knows the answer.

Embry socks him in the shoulder with a glare. “I dunno, maybe something like _take over as alpha?”_

Jacob groans. “Even if I _wanted_ to– which I don’t by the way– I have no idea how that works! Is there a handshake? Do I say the magic words and click my shiny heels three times?”

“You have to fight him,” Quil says suddenly. He grabs Jacob’s shoulders. “Dude, you have to fight him!”

Jacob stares at him incredulously. “What?” he hisses.

Quil nods furiously with glittering eyes. “I saw it on the Discovery Channel! Real wolves fight for dominance to determine the pecking order. If a wolf challenges the leader and wins, they become the new leader.” He shakes Jacob once. “You have to fight Sam and _win_.”

Jacob wrenches himself from Quil’s hold. “I am _not_ gonna fight Sam, and I don’t know the first thing about leading a pack! I’m only _eighteen_.”

“Sam didn’t know either, and he was the same age as you! Trial and error, man!”

“You’d be a better leader than Sam, Jake,” Embry adds in that quiet, decisive voice of his. “You know how important autonomy is. You account for other people before you make a decision. Sam doesn’t do any of that.”

“No,” Jacob denies resolutely. The entire idea was too overwhelming. “We keep our heads down and figure something else out.”

“How am I supposed to keep this out of my head then?” Quil whines.

“I don’t know! Sing something in your head to drown it out. Toxic. Highway to Hell. The Macarena.”

Quil snaps his fingers. “Dancing Queen!”

Jacob rolls his eyes. “Exactly.”

“We can’t do that forever,” Embry disagrees.

“Just let me figure out something else in the meantime,” Jacob begs.

Embry stares into his eyes with that all knowing look. “For how long, Jake?”

“I don’t know,” he moans, frustrated. Hopefully never.

* * *

Jacob counts his blessings when no incidents occur for the rest of the weekend. He manages to skate by without anyone blabbing on patrol.

Paul’s head is full of angry noise as usual, like their conversation never happened. Embry and Quil blast ABDC in their heads, and no one gives them a second glance despite how tired it gets after a while. Even Seth isn’t doing anything unusual, so Jacob can only hope the kid put it out of his mind or simply didn’t understand the conversation enough to make sense of it. 

He returns to River’s Edge with his two friends on Monday afternoon, and they order a large basket of wedge fries and make a special request that a certain little chef bring it out to them. Their waitress, Tracey according to the nametag, leaves their table with a wink.

As they wait for their food, Jacob catches a glimpse of Leah through the window. She walks into the restaurant and quickly tells the hostess, “I’m with _them_ ,” while she vaguely gestures to Jacob. She stomps down the aisle and glances between all of them with sharp eyes. 

Leah unceremoniously drops into what is supposed to be Bailey’s seat with a deep scowl on her face. “Care to tell me why my baby brother just had a meltdown at Emily’s?” she growls.

Jacob wants to slither under the table and disappear. He checks the clock on the wall. “Seth is at Emily’s? Isn’t he supposed to be in school right now?”

“Exactly!” Leah explodes. Quil and Embry stare at her in alarm. “I was heading there to switch out with Jared and I hear Seth screaming shit at Emily and Sam I’ve never heard come out of his mouth in his entire _life!_ ”

Quil, the ever-loving gossip, asks, “What’d he say?”

“‘I don’t want any of your dry ass muffins. I hate you and your stupid fiance.’ And _more_ things! I had to drag him out of there before Sam blew a gasket,” Leah says with a huff. She turns her scathing eyes to Jacob. “There’s only one reason why he’d do something like that. How did he find out?”

Jacob closes his eyes in regret. “He overheard me and Paul.”

“You told Paul?!”

“He already knew! He’s the one who confirmed it,” he says defensively.

Leah slams her hand on the table and it makes them all jump. “Then why hasn’t he _said anything_ this whole time?” she snarls. Quil leans away from her nervously.

“He _can’t_ ,” Jacob says meaningfully.

Leah stares at him for a full minute. “Didn’t I tell you? Sam will always do whatever he can to get his way. And now my baby brother is involved,” she says slowly. She grabs the collar of Jacob’s shirt and jerks him over the table. “If Sam does _anything_ to him, I will rip your balls off and crush them in a blender. _Don’t_ test me.”

Jacob grabs her wrist. “ _Nothing_ will happen to him if he keeps his mouth shut.”

“This is Seth we’re talking about!”

“He said nothing about it on patrol yesterday. He’s more capable than you think, Leah.”

Leah pushes him back into his seat. “Don’t tell me what I think my brother is or isn’t capable of!” she snaps. She resettles in her seat and crosses her arms. “Are you taking over yet or what?”

“He has to fight Sam to do it,” Quil says.

“Yeah? Kick his ass for me,” Leah sneers.

Jacob shakes his head. “I already said no.”

Leah throws her hands in the air. “What is the problem _now?_ ” she hisses.

“Sam has been doing this wolf crap longer than any of us! He has the most experience. I’ll go down in two seconds flat.”

“You’re almost as big as him. You won’t know until you try.”

“Okay, and when I go down Sam will probably order _me_ into submission, and then everything we’re talking about right now will go up in flames and be pointless.”

“We can help you fight, Jake,” Embry insists. “It would be four on one.”

“That’s not a fair fight,” Jacob says weakly.

“Nothing _Sam_ does is ever fair,” Leah cuts in.

All the same, Jacob refuses. “I am _not_ bringing you all down with me.”

Leah snorts. “I will gladly go down if that means getting away from _him_ ,” she spits.

“That’s dark,” Quil mumbles. Leah shrugs.

“Bailey’s coming out in two minutes,” Embry reminds them.

Leah stands from her chair with a sigh and dusts off her shorts. “That’s my cue to leave.”

“Wait, why are you leaving?” Jacob asks. “I thought you had everything squared away with Kendra already.”

Leah rolls her eyes. “Bailey is just as much of a blabbermouth as Seth. She’ll tell her sister if she sees me with you all, and I’ll never hear the end of it from Kendra before I get to talk to her in person.”

“Leah-”

“I’ll talk to Seth.” She places her hands in her hips. “But _you_ need to hurry and make up your mind about all this before someone gets hurt.”

Leah spins around with a swish of her hair and makes her way out of the restaurant.

“She’s right, you know,” Embry mutters. He straightens when Bailey rounds the corner with a tray balanced on her shoulder. 

She glances between all of them with a sour expression. “You guys know I’m the cook, not the waitress, right?” she asks.

“We just wanted to see if you’d actually do it,” Quil says. He smirks. “I think we should get a discount for your poor attitude and service.”

Embry kicks his shin under the table and ignores Quil’s yelp. “Rude,” he accuses. “ _I’m_ the one footing the bill anyway.”

Bailey sticks her tongue out at Quil. “You’re paying full price, and you better tip your _actual_ waitress, too!” She sets the tray down and jerks her thumb at Jacob. “Is this one being nice?”

“Only a little,” Embry quips. 

Jacob stares at the traitor in shock. “A _little?_ ”

“You could do better,” Embry says. Jacob’s eye twitches at the hidden meaning. 

Bailey takes her seat next to Quil and steals a potato wedge from the basket. “I figured,” she says with a smile. “Have any of you seen that movie Silent Hill? It came out last week. I heard it was good.”

Quil perks up. “Not yet, but we rented the game the other day! You into horror?”

The fries and their no-so-lighthearted conversation about the dark alternate realities of Silent Hill makes Jacob feel a little better, but he can’t shake the feeling of an impending storm coming his way. 

The feeling doesn’t relent despite Leah managing to convince Seth not to do anything drastic in her honor. He’s pissed on behalf of his sister and rightfully so, and he occasionally eyes Jacob with a devotion like he’s waiting for him to suddenly sprout wings and become the next messiah. It grates on Jacob’s nerves when he starts cheekily calling him “boss.”

Seth even refuses to step foot into Emily’s house from then on. 

Sam presses him about his sudden change of heart, and Leah quickly shuts that down by telling him, “ _Seth can feel however he wants to feel. He doesn’t have to explain himself!”_ Jacob chimes in with a, “ _You can’t force cousins to be friendly”_ and Sam immediately drops the subject when they begin to press _him_ in front of the pack.

Jacob crosses that worry off his list... For now. 

He tries to focus on the positives, like how his continued visits to River’s Edge with Embry and Quil becomes a daily ritual.

Sometimes they can’t make it all at once because of patrol shifts, but at least one of them manages to dutifully show up throughout the week. 

Jacob isn’t able to catch her on Friday, but he does run into her early Saturday morning near First Beach. She’s standing in front of the pick-up window of a tiny coffee shack called Native Grounds, chatting away with the owner, Joe Cardinal.

The shop is run by the old man and his grandson, and the duo operate the only coffee-exclusive store on the rez. It was a staple in Jacob’s home for years when his father used to drink coffee by the gallon. The area always has that nutty, lingering scent of fresh coffee beans in the air.

As he approaches, Bailey laughs at a shameless plead from Joe asking her to consider dating his grandson. 

“Do you have any of those almond croissants today?” she asks, skirting around his request. 

“You know it. Here,” he hands her two croissants wrapped in a napkin. “On the house.”

“Joe! I’m paying! We have to keep you in business.”

He waves her off. “Bah! Two croissants won’t be my downfall.”

Bailey laughs again as she watches Joe scoop a few cups of coffee beans into a jar for her. She sucks in a sharp breath and turns around. Her eyes zero in on Jacob making his way down the road. She wipes crumbs and powdered sugar from her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Jacob!” Joe yells, sticking his hand out the window with a huge grin on his face. Bailey watches them with curious eyes. 

“How are ya, boy? Haven’t seen you come for coffee in _years._ ”

Jacob matches his enthusiasm, vigorously shaking the man’s hand. “I’m doing well, sir. Hope you are too.”

“You like Joe’s coffee too?” Bailey asks.

“I’ve actually never tried coffee before,” Jacob confesses. “I would only pick it up for my dad.”

Bailey stares at him in disbelief. “Jacob, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried coffee. This man has the best coffee! Magic beans!” She shoots a sour look over her shoulder. “And Joe won’t tell me where they come from.”

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Joe smirks. He hands her a cup with steam wafting from the lid. “Besides, if I told you the brand, you wouldn’t have a reason to buy it from me anymore.”

“Why aren’t you using your fancy coffee machine at home?” Jacob asks her.

Bailey blinks. “My French press isn’t fancy,” she mutters. She holds out her cup to him. “Gotta test the product before you purchase! Wanna try?”

Jacob hesitantly takes a sip and the bitter taste makes his face pinch up. “Blech!”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Bailey laughs.

“There’s something wrong with your tastebuds!”

The sound of someone clearing their throat makes them jump, and they turn to a huddle of three middle-aged women clutching travel mugs in their hands. He and Bailey tower over them.

“Oh, sorry ma’am,” Jacob mumbles, stepping out of the way. He _hates_ dealing with them. It’s easier for him to just be polite and hope they go away faster.

One of the women curls her lips at Jacob before she saunters up to the counter. The other two women glance between him and Bailey, whispering furiously between each other as they also move forward to set their mugs on the counter.

“Black with two sugars,” the first woman says. She leans her arm against the counter and returns her nasty gaze to Jacob, eyeing him up and down with a grimace. “Didn’t know you accepted business from _junkies_ , Joe.”

Jacob winces. The rez is small enough that nearly everyone knows each other. Since the transformations started as more boys began to join the pack, a lot of people suspected drugs or something of the like. 

The few businesses La Push has initially closed their doors to them whenever any of the boys would come near, and they would get yelled at for bringing shame to the reservation with their activities.

Embry told him it went on for months before either of them joined, but Jacob experienced it for a few weeks until the Council finally put a stop to it. He has no idea what his father said, but now people don’t blatantly harass them anymore. 

Joe was one of the few exceptions who never discriminated against them in the first place, but other people will occasionally continue to give them dirty looks and whispers. The wild speculations about them never fully went away.

“ _Excuse_ you? What did you just say?” Bailey retorts. Jacob and Joe turn to her with wide eyes.

The woman looks surprised that she’s being addressed but smothers it with a snort. “Mind your business, dear.”

Bailey scoffs. “Mind my– Why don’t _you_ mind _your_ business and stop talking about things you know nothing about! It’s too early to be so rude!”

“Hah! You think I don’t know? It’s so _obvious_ him and his little friends are sneaking around doing steroids and who knows what else on the rez,” the woman rants, “and the police don’t do anything about it because they’re chummy with his father!”

“Bailey, just leave it…” Jacob places a hand on her shoulder, but she wrenches her arm away.

“ _Steroids_ _?_ ” Bailey snorts. “Drugs like that stunt growth and that’s _clearly_ not the case here. Do you really believe the first bit of nonsense you hear or was that something you just pulled out of your ass?”

The woman smirks. “Oh, and I’m sure the daughter of two alcoholic junkies knows all about drugs, huh? No wonder Diana sent you two away! Her child _and_ grandchildren are nothing but disappointments,” she sneers.

“Hey now, don’t go bringing up the dead like that,” Joe warns.

The change in Bailey’s expression is slow. Anger seeps into her eyes, turning them to coal. Her lips curl into a strained smile.

Jacob rapidly blinks as Bailey blindly hands him her half-eaten croissant and advances toward the rude woman with a deceptively casual gait. She stops in front of the woman, too close for comfort, and bends until their eyes are level.

“Say that again,” she whispers. 


	10. Halcyon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same day, from Bailey's perspective. And because I'm obsessed with warm, soft Jacob.

_This is an omen_ , Bailey thinks as she squints at the sky. 

It was a sunny, almost warm morning in La Push. As she stands on the porch with a steaming cup of coffee in hand, the bright rays of the sun heat her scalp, and the warmth absorbed by the wood seeps into her bare feet. 

She takes another sip of coffee and glances at the forest that surrounds her home, foolishly hoping that Paul will magically appear and finally tell her what the hell has been going on with him and the rest of the wayward boys in town.

Paul called the same evening of his abrupt exit to apologize, but he wouldn’t explain his reasons why he did it in the first place. Just when he finally walks back into her life again, he still manages to keep her at a distance. She sees him more often when she runs errands around La Push, but she never gets anything more than a brief conversation and an excuse about needing to be elsewhere with a pinch to her cheek.

Even Seth seemed oddly subdued during his visit, only made worse after Jacob had to leave without explanation right after Paul. He tried to appear cheerful for the rest of the morning, but Bailey could see right through him. 

He kept it up for two movies until he finally edged out of her home with weak promises of returning as soon as he could after school. She only managed to catch him once this week, and he claimed he was in a rush to get his homework done. She offered him a ride home, and he stammered through another excuse.

Being held at arm’s length by them feels more like banishment. The house feels inexplicably lonelier without her family keeping her company like they used to.

The ringing of the landline makes Bailey pause. Only a handful of people use that number these days, and she can easily guess who is using it right now. She walks into the house and lifts the phone from the hook with a smile.

“We should probably cancel the service to this phone,” Bailey says by way of greeting.

Her sister scoffs on the other end. “Yeah, over my dead body,” Kendra grumbles. “Do you know how long it took me to remember this stupid number?”

“Yes, and Daddy thought it was so funny when your preschool teacher sent you home with a note about it. He kept it taped on the fridge ever since,” Bailey recalls. 

“He never let me live that down,” Kendra laughs. She’s quiet for a few breaths. “It’s still there, isn’t it?”

Bailey taps the faded ink on the crumpled note secured to the freezer door. “Yeah,” she replies quietly. “‘Kendra is having trouble remembering her phone number. She hasn’t grasped the quiet rule either. Please work with her on this at home.’”

That puts Kendra into hysterics. “Mrs. Klein was a real bitch.”

“She liked _me_.”

“Until you punched Chris Faro and knocked his front tooth out!”

“Okay, first of all, it was a baby tooth,” Bailey clarifies, counting on her fingers. “And second of all, he pushed you in the hallway! He was annoying, and I took care of it.”

“That was overcorrecting,” Kendra insists. Like she had room to talk. Her older sister cheered her on when she slugged the poor kid in the mouth. “Speaking of annoyances, was there a resolution to _your_ problems?”

Bailey sighs. “I don’t know what you said to him, but Paul showed up on the porch bright and early the next morning. With Seth!” she tells her. “He’s huge, and he’s under Sam’s wing, too.”

“No,” Kendra gasps. “Godammit! No wonder Leah was freaking out about more people disappearing. I can’t believe it! What the fuck is going _on_ with these boys?”

“Right, but he’s still the same sweetheart. He just looks like he’s aged ten years.”

“His father died, Bailey. Of course he would look like that.”

“No, it’s not just that. I swear he could pass for a grown man.” She remembers those eyes of his when she saw Seth on the porch– the eyes of an anxious, scarred child looking out of place on the face of an adult. “He looked haunted more than anything.”

“Maybe he is, with whatever is going on,” Kendra murmurs. “What about Jacob?”

Bailey sets down her mug and twists her fingers into the phone cord. “He apologized.”

“Why does it sound like there’s an ‘and’ after that sentence?”

Her sister’s tone makes Bailey wince. “And now I regularly hang out with him and his friends during my lunch break?” she says uncertainly. She leans away from the phone in anticipation of her sister’s yelling.

Kendra does not disappoint.

“WHAT?” she explodes. “Why are you hanging out with that fucking creep and his friends!”

“It was a misunderstanding,” Bailey insists, but even to her it sounds weak.

“Have you lost your damn mind? You need to stay far away from them! He hates you, for God’s sake. Wasn’t that made clear when you were crying, or are you just gonna wait for him to do it _again_ before you realize he’s a complete jackass?”

“He _was_ , and then he apologized for it and I accepted.” Bailey sighs. “But there’s more to it than that.”

“Please tell me you don’t have a crush on this boy,” Kendra moans.

“I don’t,” Bailey replies sharply. “Listen, there’s more going on here than I can even comprehend.”

“Just spit it out. I’m tired of all this pussyfooting from everyone else,” Kendra snaps. Bailey whole-heartedly agrees.

“I didn’t want to say anything until I heard it directly from the source, but do you remember Leah’s older cousin Emily?” Kendra makes a sound of agreement. “Well, apparently Sam’s had his eyes on her since _last summer_. Now _they’re_ engaged, and she’s knocked up. By the looks of her stomach, they must’ve been bumping uglies before Sam and Leah ever broke up.”

It takes a minute for Kendra to absorb everything she said. Finally, her sister wordlessly screams like a banshee into the speaker.

“That nasty, conniving, jealous, evil _bitch_ -”

“Yes, yes,” Bailey interrupts. “But Emily claims it was spurred on by magic. She said it was love at first sight for them and destiny put her there to be with Sam and mother all his children.”

“Puh- _LEASE_. Spare me,” Kendra retorts. “I’d bet everything I own that Sam couldn’t keep it in his pants and dicked her down so good she simply couldn’t fathom ever letting that thing get away from her.”

Laughter nearly knocks Bailey over. “Kendra!” 

“What? It’s probably true! Why else would she make up some shit like that? It’s nonsense.”

“I don’t entirely believe her justification either, but my _point_ _is_ – whatever went on with Emily... some variation of it is happening to me and Jacob,” Bailey mumbles.

Kendra coughs. “...Come again?”

“It’s not going to make sense. Jacob didn’t actually _do_ anything to me. He's supposed to bite me, according to Emily anyway, because we're soulmates. Sam bit her, and she said the magic in that is basically a seal of their happily ever after-”

“A bite. True love’s first bite made her open her legs and betray Leah,” Kendra says in a monotone. “Do you hear how stupid that sounds?”

“Her words, not mine! But I swear something happened to me. Jacob looked at me _once_ , and everything was weird ever since. There's electrical nodes in my hands whenever I touch him,” she struggles to explain. “All that stuff made Jacob freak out until-”

“Did you fuck Jacob Black?” Kendra interrupts. 

“No! I don’t see him that way,” Bailey hisses. Her sister makes a disbelieving sound. “I’m serious! When I look at him I feel something, but it’s not love. He’s just... familiar, and my soul gets excited from that. Like it recognizes him from a past life.”

“Are there also unicorns and knights in shining armor?”

“Kendra, I swear to God! I’m not joking!”

“Sorry, but I’m having a hard time believing any of this. It sounds too ridiculous,” Kendra says. “So you forgave Jacob because you think he’s your soulmate?”

“He _is_ , but I forgave him because he seemed sincere when he promised to change his behavior. And he has,” Bailey says firmly.

“And now you and your ‘soulmate’ and his cult buddies just hang out in make believe land.”

Bailey pinches the bridge of her nose. “None of us are crazy, and I like them!”

She wouldn’t say because she knew it would upset Kendra, but it’s soothing to have Embry and Jacob and Quil to talk to when she’s at work. Their antics fill the quiet left behind by her sister, Paul and Seth. They make her feel less isolated... at least until she returns home. 

“...That crusty old man’s grandson is in on it?!”

“You mean Old Quil? What about him?” Bailey asks.

“Ma was some kind of informal member of the Council, remember? You missed it while you were in Cali, but that man used to call here _all_ the time at weird hours of the night. Ma would sit in the garden to take his calls,” Kendra says.

That piece of information makes Bailey curious. Her grandmother never mentioned that before. “About what?”

Kendra clicks her tongue. “I never paid attention to the calls too much.”

“Because you were too busy sneaking around with Paul?” Bailey asks with a smile.

“Shut up, brat,” Kendra bites out. She sighs. “Yes. Obviously.”

“Paul misses you, you know,” Bailey murmurs. “He was unpacking your things last weekend. He treated everything very delicately. It was cute.”

“Oh, yeah? Didn’t seem that way when he had some other bitch in his bed while I was on the phone with him the other day,” Kendra retorts.

“But-”

“Didn’t seem that way when he pretended I didn’t exist after I searched for him like a madwoman and took care of Penny during the weeks he disappeared,” Kendra continues bitterly. “I’m sure he misses me _so much_.”

“There has to be an explanation, or some kind of misunderstanding-”

“A _two year_ ‘misunderstanding’?” Kendra yells back. “There’s no misunderstanding. Paul made himself perfectly clear _and_ he spent two years doing nothing to fix it! So please, for fuck’s sake, stop sticking up for him and just drop it.”

“Okay,” she mumbles. 

Kendra sighs. “He’ll always be your big brother if you want him to,” she whispers, “but the trust between him and I is gone. It’s been gone for a very long time, and him supposedly missing me isn’t going to change that. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” But she hates the way things are. For both of them. 

“We went over this a thousand times so you better not be upset,” Kendra warns. 

“I’m not.” It's a lie. “Anyway, I have to go pick up some more coffee.”

“Okay. Love me still?” 

“Of course I do. I’ll call you later.”

Kendra hums. “Sure. And stay away from those cult people!” 

“No can do,” Bailey sings, ending the call. She sets the phone down with a sigh.

The loneliness creeps back in. It would be easier if her sister were here. Even if all Kendra would do is watch Bailey storm off to her room to stew in silence, at least she wouldn't be _alone_.

The quiet is too loud, the surrounding forest is too big, and her grandmother’s bedroom door across from her own feels more oppressive than she cares to admit. The house is strange when she’s by herself.

Bailey longs to call her sister back, just to have some sign of life in the house again, but she refrains.

 _You’ll feel better if you go outside_ , she tells herself.

Keeping her gaze pointedly away from the door across from hers, she scampers into her bedroom and picks through her dresser for a pair of socks. She tucks in the hem of her pajama pants into her socks and quickly finger combs her hair in a half-assed attempt to tame her unruly curls.

One glance at her reflection in the mirror propped against the wall has her quickly turning back to her dresser to dig out a baseball cap. There’s no hope for her hair today.

“Why do I even bother,” she mutters to herself, putting the hat on backwards. All of the fashion sense and color coordination skills were bestowed on her older sister. 

She heads to the kitchen to pick out a mason jar, shoving it into a tote bag. She stuffs her feet into a pair of sneakers and snatches her keys up on the way out.

Her favorite coffee shop is manned by a sweet old man named Joe, and he always set up shop bright and early for as long as she could remember. The walk is only about two miles so she forgoes her car because of the nicer weather and hums to herself as she takes in the scenic route.

* * *

When she finally sees Native Grounds in the distance, she eagerly waves at Joe standing in the takeout window and jogs the rest of the way.

“Back again, kiddo?” he chuckles, already holding out his hand for the bag.

“You have the best coffee on the rez,” Bailey chirps, handing him her jar. 

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Joe winks. He snaps his fingers and leans forward on his elbows. “Hey, you’re a young gal. My grandson’s about your age and you’ve seen him around. Are you dating anybody?”

Bailey’s mouth opens and closes a few times. She’s seen his grandson, Eric, she thinks, help out in the shop a few times. The only thing that really stuck out about him was his quiet demeanor and the topknot he always kept his hair styled in. The idea of dating him never crossed her mind.

“Uh, I’m not seeing anybody at the moment,” she mumbles. 

“Aha! That’s the spirit! Eric is a good boy, and real smart. He graduated a year early from Whitman. With honors,” Joe says with so much pride in his voice. The college name drop flies over her head, but it sounds like a good accomplishment.

“If he’s so great, why’s he single?” Bailey wonders. 

“He claims he’s too busy studying to chase a girl,” Joe explains with a roll of his eyes. “Can I give you his number, then? Pretty girl like you might do him some good.”

Bailey laughs as she scans the display case and artfully ignores his question. “Do you have any of those almond croissants today?”

Joe snickers as he hands her two croissants. “You know it. Here. On the house.”

“Joe! I’m paying! We have to keep you in business.”

He gives her a dismissive wave. “Bah! Two croissants won’t be my downfall.”

Bailey laughs and takes a bite as she watches Joe putter around through the window. That weird Jacob-sense skitters through her brain and makes her stiffen. It never fails to get an involuntary reaction from her no matter how often she’s around him these days.

Joe looks at her with curious eyes, but she only offers him a wink and spins on her heel. She spots Jacob in the distance, pulling a sweatshirt over his head as he walks down the road. He perks up when he notices her stare and a sunny smile spreads across his face.

As he gets closer the amused expression on his face makes her belatedly realize that her face might be covered with crumbs, and she runs a hand over her mouth. Before she can say anything, Joe hollers an enthusiastic greeting to Jacob.

They shake hands and exchange friendly banter with each other. A cozy, familial energy exudes from them both as they speak, and it makes Bailey’s lips curl into a tiny smile as she observes.

“You like Joe’s coffee, too?” she asks.

Jacob rubs his hands together and shrugs as he explains how he’s never had coffee before. His response makes Bailey’s mouth pop open in shock. _Never_ tried coffee before? How the hell did he make it through the day?

“Jacob, you haven’t lived until you’ve tried coffee. This man has the best coffee! Magic beans!” She remembers with a scowl how their origin is also a complete mystery to her. “And Joe won’t tell me where they come from.”

Joe gives her a coy look as he hands her a freshly brewed cup of coffee and tells her a flimsy excuse for his secret.

Bailey takes a sip of the heavenly elixir and hums.

“Why aren’t you using your fancy coffee machine at home?” Jacob blurts out.

Bailey pauses, trying to understand what he’s referring to. Was he talking about her French press? It was a cheap thing she picked up from IKEA _years_ ago.

“My French press isn’t fancy,” she insists. She offers him her cup. “Gotta test the product before you purchase! Wanna try?”

She laughs at the disgusted expression on his face when he takes a sip. He sputters and accuses her of having malfunctioning tastebuds. An apology is just on the tip of her tongue, but the clearing of someone’s throat abruptly kills the laughter.

Three older women are standing elbow to elbow behind them, wearing matching expressions of annoyance and superiority. They look about as harmless as a hobbit. Bailey has to resist the urge to laugh. _Rez aunties_.

Jacob looks sheepish, however, and gingerly steps off to the side. “Oh, sorry ma’am,” he mumbles. He turns his face away when the woman in the middle has the audacity to curl her lip at him despite his polite attitude. The discomfort that overshadows his cheerful expression makes Bailey instantly annoyed at these women.

The other two lackeys begin whispering nonsense to each other as they take stock of Jacob. All three place their mugs on the counter for Joe, who seems flabbergasted by the sudden change in the air.

The leader rattles off her order and gives Jacob an unpleasant onceover. “Didn’t know you accepted business from _junkies_ , Joe.”

Bailey does a double take as she processes the woman’s words. “ _Excuse_ you? What did you just say?” she demands.

She doesn’t know why she bothers arguing with this woman. They go back and forth as Bailey tries to refute everything thrown at her, despite Jacob pleading for her to leave it alone. But she can’t. Everything the woman says picks at an old scab of Bailey’s that never seems to go away.

“Oh, and I’m sure the daughter of two alcoholic junkies knows all about drugs, huh? No wonder Diana sent you two away! Her child _and_ grandchildren are nothing but disappointments.”

Joe says something, but Bailey can’t hear it. A loud ringing drowns out every other sound in her ears as she stares blankly at the woman.

Of all the things, why did she have to bring _that_ up?

It chafes worse than Bailey could have ever imagined. The curse of living in a town with a population of a few hundred: everybody knows each other’s business. Of course they knew all about her family even if she didn’t recognize any of their faces. Gossip is the only weapon in their arsenal, and they knew how to use it well. She would prefer sticks and stones.

Still, she slowly approaches the offending woman on autopilot, bending to look her in the eye.

“Say that again,” she whispers in a trembling voice.

The woman glares, raising her arm. Bailey tenses and her gaze zeroes in on the approaching hand, having already anticipated that she might get slapped for her lack of submission. A part of her is glad for it; she would never make the first move, but she has no problems retaliating as soon as that hand makes contact.

Her hand barely whispers against Bailey's cheek before a pair of searing hands grasp her forearms and yank her backwards out of harm’s way. A rumbling like thunder comes from Jacob. It’s quieter than the first time she heard it weeks ago, but it’s as equally frightening now that she can feel it against her back. At the same time, Joe slams his hand on the counter and shouts, “Hey!”

That makes everyone freeze.

Joe pushes the three mugs to the edge of the counter. “I don’t tolerate that kind of talk ‘round here, Dawn, especially toward kids. Pay for your coffee and be on your way,” he fumes.

Dawn glances at Bailey while she takes out her wallet and slams down a few bills. Bailey shoots her a glare as she takes her mug and marches away while the other two women scurry after her, still whispering and glancing back every few seconds. Her mettle disappears along with them, and she lowers her head when there's nothing left but grief.

Jacob doesn’t let her arms go until the aunties are out of site. He gives her a gentle squeeze and steps back, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry about the croissant,” he murmurs.

The croissant is on the ground, now caked in dirt. Bailey can’t muster the will to laugh at it. More than anything, she just wants to go somewhere quiet and cry. Instead, she turns back to Joe standing at the window.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly.

“Nothing you did wrong, kiddo,” Joe insists, holding his hands up. “Y’looked like a real firecracker back there, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Bailey looks down at her feet. It’s not her favorite thing to hear about herself. She fishes out her wallet from her tote bag and mutters, “What do I owe you?”

Joe frowns, but he lists the price and silently accepts her bills when she hands them to him. She takes her jar of coffee beans and the receipt with a nod, shoving both into her bag. Quickly turning around so Joe doesn’t see her face crumble, she bumps right into Jacob.

Crap. Jacob. How could she forget Jacob? 

He’s standing in front of her, impossibly tall, peering down at her with a concerned frown. He asks if she’s okay.

“Yeah,” she lies through her teeth. “See ya around.”

She adjusts her bag and steps around him, but, of course, he follows after her.

Jacob is her silent shadow for half a mile. Bailey spins around when she finally reaches a breaking point. He needs to back off or go away or do something else. Literally anything else so he doesn’t see her lose composure and cry in front of him. _Again_.

“Please stop following me,” she warns.

Jacob looks surprised. “You’re upset. So I’m waiting until you’re ready to talk,” he says. 

He speaks so casually, like he’s talking about the weather and doesn’t have a care in the world about that dramatic experience. It makes her eyes burn.

“How are you not upset? She said awful things about you, too!” Bailey demands.

His eyes look solemn. “I’m used to it by now. This happens more often than you think.”

Bailey shakes her head. How could she forget? That kind of behavior caught her off guard, as it was something she hadn’t experienced in so long. How would she, when no one knew of her childhood in California? She had a clean slate there, but almost everyone knew of her family in La Push. She certainly didn’t miss this aspect of the rez.

“Hey…” Jacob croons. He swipes his massive thumb across her cheek to catch the stupid tear that escaped her eye.

He envelopes her in a sweltering hug, and it thaws the disheartenment she was trying to hold back. She sobs once, and her fingers tangle in his sweatshirt.

“Why did she have to say that?” she whimpers. “That was… that was so…” Brutal. Embarrassing. Invasive.

“I know. I’m sorry,” Jacob murmurs, clutching her tighter. The strength of his grip is borderline uncomfortable and oddly calming at the same time. He waits like that for few minutes before he quietly asks her, “You okay?”

Bailey shrugs, still feeling raw and exposed, and Jacob doesn’t let her go. He simply rests his chin on top of her head and hums a song she can’t quite put her finger on. His patience is sweet, and more than anything she’s grateful he doesn’t ask any prying questions. He just waits.

Jacob’s head snaps up and Bailey stiffens in reaction. As she turns her head, Sam appears from the foliage around them like some mythical forest creature and nods at them both with a suggestive smile. Uncertainty washes over her as he comes closer.

“Jacob. Bailey,” Sam greets them.

“Sam,” Jacob returns in a wary voice. He adjusts his grip, shifting from comforting to protective.

“I see the bond is working out well for you both,” Sam continues.

Jacob shakes his head. “I think you have the wrong impression.”

Sam gestures at them, at Jacob’s arms around her shoulders and her hands clutching at him. Bailey could imagine how they could look to someone who hadn’t known she’d been crying just seconds before.

“She was upset!” Jacob insists, slowly releasing her. Bailey covertly wipes her eyes on her sleeve

“You've been so defensive lately, Jacob. Just like with Seth the other day,” Sam says, cocking his head. “Care to elaborate on that?”

Something about his tone makes Bailey bristle. “Defend Seth from what?” she asks.

Sam turns his attention to her with a polite smile. “Emily misses you, you know,” he tells her. The change of subject is jarring. “You should come around more, and catch up, you know? I’m sure you’ll need plenty of advice from her now that you’re-”

He glances below her chin, and Bailey self-consciously pulls at the drawstring of her hood tight to hide her neck and takes a tiny step away from Jacob. If Sam thought she was going to allow Jacob to take a chunk out of her neck and knock her up with magic babies, he was in for a rude awakening.

Sam turns burning eyes to Jacob. “I thought you-”

“I’m _not_ doing it, Sam. I don’t feel that way. Neither of us feel that way!” Jacob interrupts. Bailey vehemently nods in agreement.

“You’re _wrong_ ,” Sam growls.

“How are _you_ gonna tell me how I feel?” Bailey snaps.

Sam’s face cools into a mask of indifference. “I’m not. Fate is,” he replies shortly. He glances between both of them with something strange in his eyes and backs away until the trees envelope him. It’s just as freaky as his entrance.

Involuntary laughter bubbles from Bailey’s lips. “What the hell was _that_?”

Jacob stares into the direction Sam disappeared to with a pensive frown on his face. “Just Sam being Sam,” he says. Because that makes a ton of sense.

Bailey waits for more, but he doesn’t elaborate. He turns his gaze to the ground like it has all the answers, and now it’s his turn to be upset it seems. Somehow that interaction with Sam bothered him more than anything the rez aunties did.

Bailey grasps at straws to get rid of that expression on his face and somehow rescue this terrible morning. “Do you have any other plans this morning, aside from stalking me all the way home?” she asks. It should get a rise out of him.

As she anticipates, Jacob looks up with a flash of indignation. “You know I’m not-”

“I’m kidding,” she assures softly. She waits until he relaxes before she continues. “Thank you for that. Seriously. Now, can I interest you in some experiments?”

Jacob’s brow furrows. “Experiments? What does that mean?”

“I’m a chef, so I test recipes for fun and blog about it,” she explains. “Are you in? My house is a mile more up the river.” She glances down, belatedly realizing he has no shoes on. “Uh, have you been barefoot this whole time?”

Jacob says a quiet, “Oops,” and pats his pockets. He pulls flip flops out of his back pocket and slides his feet in them, glancing at Bailey’s disbelieving expression. “A few sticks and pebbles won’t hurt me. And sure, I’ll come.”

She’s glad for the company– desperate in fact, but she can’t believe he endured the rough ground with no shoes for half a mile.

A lightbulb goes off in her head.

“Aha!” Bailey snaps her fingers, pointing at him with an accusing finger. “You’re a cyborg!”

Jacob blinks. “What?”

“You’re a cyborg,” she repeats. “Poor social cues, resistant to pain and the weather, general weirdness– you’re the Terminator!”

“Um-”

Bailey gasps with as much theatricality as she can. “Am I the savior? Do I have to defeat the machines in the future?” She gives him her worst impression of an Austrian accent. “Come with me if you want to live!”

On the running list of guesses she currently has, this is definitely one of the sillier ones, but it does the trick. Jacob throws his head back in laughter and his entire expression lightens. He looks like the sun again.

“Is that your only guess?” he asks between laughs.

Bailey grins right back. “Oh, we’re just getting started, buddy! I have a whole list to get through!”

* * *

Jacob immediately snatches up her toolbox as soon as they enter her home so he could fix the monstrosity the bathroom door had become. In exchange for his work, Bailey presents him with a huge omelette and a dollop of her homemade (and technically experimental) sofrito on top.

She’s stirring soup in a huge stock pot on one burner as she eyes a batch of chicken stewing in another pot on the next burner. She absently flips through a recipe book to check what her next steps will be.

“You _do_ look like a witch.”

Bailey blinks and looks up at Jacob. He’s staring at her with an amused smile on his face as he makes a stirring gesture with his hands. It makes her smirk.

“I’m melting!” she cries, clutching her neck and slowly lowering to the floor. “Melting!”

She pops back onto her feet, and Jacob stands at the island, staring at her with laughter creasing his eyes. He leans over the counter and takes a whiff of the air.

“Smells good,” Jacob says. He holds up his suspiciously spotless dish. “Where can I put this?”

“In the dishwasher. Although it looks like you cleaned it up pretty well already, so I assume you enjoyed the eggs,” she replies coyly.

Jacob doesn’t respond, but his ears redden as he walks around the island to prop open the dishwasher and place his dish inside. He makes an aborted move with his hand toward the back of his neck, almost as if he meant to fidget with his hair. He pets the nape of his neck instead.

“Did you cut your hair, too? Like Seth?” she asks quietly.

His arm drops awkwardly at his side. “Yeah,” he murmurs.

Bailey hums, letting the subject drop. “Do you know your way around a knife?” she asks.

“Sure. Kinda,” Jacob responds with a shrug.

Kinda is the understatement of the century.

Bailey hardly needs to give him any instruction; he holds the knife in his hand with perfect finger placement. She gives him a demonstration of how she likes her onions cut and how to julienne peppers, and after watching her with rapt attention, he slices the vegetables with shocking precision. She abandons the turnip and cilantro on her own cutting board to watch him.

“You’re really good,” she murmurs.

“My dad taught me how to whittle wood. Guess it’s handy in the kitchen.” He finishes with his own vegetables and eyes hers. “Can I cut those, too?”

Bailey wordlessly gestures for him to go ahead, and she makes a beeline for the fridge. She pulls out a ball of dough, setting it on the counter.

Jacob eyes it curiously. “Are you making a pie?”

“Close! I’m gonna make empanadas.” She smiles. “You can take the leftovers home if you like them.”

Jacob nods and turns his attention back to chopping. Bailey flours the counter and starts kneading the dough, but she can see him sneaking glances at her hands.

“They’re from fortune cookies,” Bailey explains. She knows he was staring at her tattoos. “I used to collect them in high school, and I got my favorite ones put on my fingers.”

Jacob looks curious. “What do they say?”

“You have to let me maintain _some_ mystery, Jacob.” He snorts at that. “So, tell me. What’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten?”

“Lava cake,” he says without hesitation.

Bailey blinks in surprise. “I didn’t take you for a dessert person.”

“I’m not really. But if I have some kind of dessert, it has to be chocolate cake.” He smiles to himself. “My mom used to make me a lava cake for my birthday every year.”

“Did she bake often?”

Jacob snorts. “My _mom_? She was terrible at baking. The only thing she could bake was a lava cake, and it all started by accident.”

“You can dump the veggies in the stockpot and stir it a little,” Bailey says offhandedly. She adds, “Tell me more.”

Jacob walks over to the burners to do what she asked. “Well, we used to get a sheet cake from the grocery store for our birthdays, but it was always vanilla. I asked for chocolate when I turned seven because I was obsessed with making mud pies, and Mom wanted to try her hand at baking it herself,” he says. “Took a few tries, but she eventually made one that looked alright. She even made icing flowers that didn’t look half bad. But when we cut it, the whole thing collapsed in the middle, and the batter oozed out.”

“Oh no!” Bailey laughs.

“We ate it anyway. It was actually…” He pauses, smiling softly. “I loved it. And it looked cool, like a volcano.”

“And she baked it for you from then on,” she concludes.

He nods. “Yeah. Mom was so happy I liked it. There’s pictures of me with chocolate all over my face from my birthdays with her.”

“That’s really sweet, Jacob,” Bailey whispers. “Food memories are the best memories.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you engage all your senses. What it tasted like, smelled like, the texture, how it made you feel, how it looked. That stuff sticks in your brain forever.” She winks at him. “I bet you couldn’t tell me what you had for breakfast two weeks ago because it wasn’t memorable. But you described that lava cake like you ate it yesterday.”

“Huh.” A contemplative look settles on his face. “What’s the best food _you’ve_ eaten?”

“Harry’s fish fry,” she says with a shrug. Jacob looks surprised. “Sometimes Daddy would go fishing with him. When he brought me along for the first time, we fried up the fish we caught. It was so simple, but I’ve never had anything like it since.”

She pauses when she realizes Jacob looks antsy with his hands empty and it makes her laugh. “Would you like something else to do?”

Embarrassment washes over his face as he tries to stop his fidgeting. “Sorry. I like to keep my hands busy.”

“Don’t apologize. Here.” She hands him two forks. “You can shred the chicken in this pot. Think bear claws. Like Wolverine.”

“Gotcha.” He takes one look at the glint in her eyes and shakes his head. “We’re not X-Men.”

Bailey throws her flour covered hands up. “Oh, come on!”

“There’s no secret mutant school on the rez either.”

“Fine,” she sighs. “So you like to be busy. What do you do at home?”

Jacob grins. “I fix up cars in my garage. I could do it for hours. I restored an old Volkswagen recently.”

“By yourself?” He gives a proud nod. “That’s amazing! You have to show me sometime!”

Jacob smiles to himself and ducks his head. “Yeah, that would be cool,” he mumbles, shy again. 

Bailey grins, butting him with her shoulder until he laughs again. It’s the perfect sound, and it fills the house with the flickers of life she’s been craving. They continue to chat about everything and nothing, and the hours fly by without her noticing.

Jacob loves the empanadas, and he even attempts to eat one in a single bite just to see if he could. He manages somehow, and Bailey begs him to do it again so she can take a picture. He does it a few more times for the heck of it, and each attempt never fails to amaze her.

She doesn’t remember the last time she’s had this much fun, but it all comes to a stop when Jacob finally has to go home. Bailey gives him a large tupperware full of leftovers and a separate one for the soup, telling him to let his father try some before he finishes it all. Jacob rolls his eyes at that.

He declines her offer to drive him home, claiming he knows the forest well and he’ll be perfectly fine. She watches him disappear down the driveway with a smile, and slowly closes the front door, wondering what to do next.

Bailey decides to clean up, scrubbing and organizing little things until everything in the kitchen is in decent order. The plants are watered last, and she finds herself with nothing else to do. She glances around, trying not to pay attention to the quiet when she spots her forgotten tote bag with her replenished supply of coffee beans.

She removes the jar and makes a curious sound when she notices something strange about the receipt. She fishes it from the bag and promptly laughs at what she sees.

Despite her attempts to stop Joe from playing matchmaker, he _still_ wrote Eric’s name and number on the back of the receipt. An idea quickly forms in her head. He’s single, and she’s bored.

 _This is it_ , she thinks. _This is the distraction I need._

She hurries to her cell phone and punches the number in. Two rings pass, and a deep, masculine voice answers the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi, um, is this Eric? Eric Cardinal?” she asks. She silently cheers when he confirms. “Great! This is Bailey. Silver, if that helps. Your grandfather gave me your number.”

“Yeah, I remember you. You’re the one with the pretty eyes!” His enthusiasm makes Bailey chuckle. Eric clears this throat. “You, uh, you always ask for the almond croissant.”

Bailey is surprised he remembers that detail about her, too. “It’s the best one,” she grins. “I know this is kind of unusual, but… would you want to maybe meet up sometime this week?”

He’s quick to respond. “Dinner on Tuesday? Around six?”

“Sure,” she chirps. Dinner was more than she could’ve ever hoped for. “We can meet at the coffee shop first.”

Bailey pulls up her calendar to set a reminder and nearly throws her phone when she realizes what week this is.

Oh. _Oh._ That's what the omen was warning her about.

She snaps out of it when Eric keeps calling her name to get her attention. “I have to go. See you Tuesday,” she replies quickly.

Bailey ends the call before he can say anything else and continues to stare at the calendar with dread. 


	11. Lean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this was a beast... It used to be 11K+ words, but I whittled it down to 7K. There's probably errors. I'll fix 'em later.

Jacob and Embry are running the last few minutes of their circuit around the reservation as they wait to be relieved from their shift. Their run was mostly filled with light conversation topics until Jacob mentioned visiting Bailey afterwards.

“ _She's been acting strange all week_ ,” Jacob says.

Embry conjures images of her at their usual table, staring out the window with a solemn gaze. The next image is of her offering a tight smile, assuring in a soft voice that she was fine.

Jacob initially thought it was because of that date she went on, and even contemplated punching the guy in the face, but Embry quickly shot down that reason. 

“ _She was off before that_ ,” Embry recalls.

They only got to see a few minutes of her normal behavior return when Quil invited her to play Soulcalibur at his house on Tuesday. Her eyes _finally_ lit up as she agreed, and they all piled into her car while Quil gave her directions from the passenger seat. It was a tight fit in Quil’s tiny bedroom, but the happy grin never left Bailey’s face. A few minutes into the gameplay she informed them she could only stay for an hour, and then that brooding demeanor reared its ugly head again.

* * *

_“I’m going on a date later, that’s why.”_

_“A date?! With WHO?”_

_Bailey cringed as Quil screamed directly into her ear. She leaned away from him, keeping her eyes glued to the TV as she frantically pressed the buttons on her Playstation controller._

_“Yes, a date,” she confirmed. “With Eric Cardinal.”_

_Jacob turned toward her with surprise. “You’re really going?” he asked. He was sure she wasn’t going to give the guy a shot. She didn’t seem interested in Joe’s attempts to give her his grandson’s number, but maybe he was wrong._

_Bailey glanced over her shoulder at him. “Really, really,” she replied._

_Quil groaned. “But he’s so old!”_

_Bailey rolled her eyes. “Eric is only two years older than me.”_

_“Still old!” Quil insisted. “What’s so great about him?”_

_“I don’t know. When I go on the date I’ll find out,” Bailey shrugged._

_“Well, when am_ I _gonna get a shot?”_

_Bailey pretended to think about it. “Never, I think.”_

_“But you hung out alone with Jake over the weekend!”_

_“That wasn’t a date,” Bailey and Jacob denied at the same time. Jacob smacked the back of Quil’s head for good measure._

_Bailey knocked her shoulder into Quil’s. “Actually, if that qualified as a date then_ this _is a date, too. Look, you got your chance after all!”_

_“This isn’t fair,” Quil whined._

_Abruptly, a contemplative look settled in Bailey’s eyes. “When is life ever fair?” she grumbled. Her mood took a nosedive after that, and she relinquished her controller to Embry._

_Jacob shared a glance with Embry over her head, wondering what exactly she meant by that._

* * *

As the week progressed she only seemed to get worse and more distant. 

Quil’s consciousness joins them. “ _My ears are burning. You guys talking about me?_ ” He pauses as he flips through the trailing thoughts of their conversation. “ _Oh._ ”

“ _Yeah. Oh_ ,” Jacob retorts.

“ _Don’t you think it’s a funny coincidence-_ ”

There’s a _pop_ and an onslaught of _Kim, Kim, Kim._ They get a replay of Kim reapplying her lip gloss, the strawberry flavored one that Jared likes the best because it tints her lips a pretty shade of pink and leaves behind a sticky residue when she does that cool trick to slide a condom on-

“ _Dude_ ,” Quil screams. “ _There is a minor present!_ ”

“ _You turned eighteen like two weeks ago,_ ” Jared replies, exasperated.

“ _Still! You imprinters are always thinking about doing the nasty._ ”

“ _Oh? Is Jake doing the nasty now, too? Finally moved up to the big leagues!_ ” The smirk in Jared’s voice is nearly visible. “ _How was she? Kim couldn’t stop-_ ”

“ _We don’t need to hear about all that_ ,” Embry interrupts.

Jacob wants to scream, and another part of him wants to punch Jared in the face. “ _We didn’t do anything! And don’t talk about her like that–_ ”

Another _pop,_ and Sam joins the conversation. “ _Do you know how content you would be if you just did what you were told? Look at how happy Jared is,_ ” he says in that condescending voice of his. “ _This is the way of the imprint, Jacob. You’re denying a great gift from the spirits._ ”

Before Jacob could begin to form a response and let his anger rip, _because it’s none of his goddamn business_ , Quil and Embry break out into song. He falters, just as confused as Sam and Jared. He shakes his head when he realizes what they’re singing.

“ _F is for friends who do stuff together, U is for you and me…_ ” Their voices are terrible. It grates on his ears.

“ _W_ _hat the hell are you guys doing?_ ” Sam asks irritably. Quil and Embry ignore him, and, amusingly, start singing louder as they continue the song.

“ _U is for uranium-_ ”

“ _BOMBS!_ ”

“ _N is for no survivors when you-_ ”

“ _Gotta go_ ,” Jacob yells over the noise. He quickly phases out and stands in the blissful quiet of the forest with a scowl. He mutters to himself, “Real smooth, guys.”

He wonders what the hell he’s supposed to do about Sam now that he’s _really_ starting to get on his nerves, and his friends couldn’t be _more_ obvious they’re trying to hide something. With a sigh, he follows his nose until he finds a set of clothes and flip flops he stowed in the hollow of a tree. It’s a pain to run around with clothes in his mouth, so he tends to keep extras in hidey holes around La Push for convenience.

Jacob shucks on the sweatpants and henley before he continues his walk. Quil and Embry eventually converge toward him where the edge of the forest meets the street and they fall in line together.

Quil clears his throat. “So, uh, _are_ you guys doing the nasty?” he asks.

Jacob almost chokes, and he has half a mind to choke Quil too. “Are you crazy? You already know the answer to that!”

“You hogged her all to yourself on Saturday, _and_ you got her to cook for you. Don’t even pretend she isn’t attractive.” Quil squints, and it makes Jacob downright uncomfortable. “If it weren’t for this Sam thing, I’d _swear_ you were sneaking around with her on the down low!”

Jacob groans. “How many times do I have to go over this? It was a spur of the moment decision! You weren’t not invited on purpose.” 

“Well, it feels like it!” 

“Take it up with her!”

Quil sticks out his tongue. “Maybe I will!” 

“I wouldn’t. She’s been in a bad mood all week,” Embry cuts in.

Quil smacks his fist into his palm. “That’s what I was trying to get at before Jared rudely interrupted!” He points an accusing finger at Jacob. “She hangs out with Jacob over the weekend and is upset the whole week after. Coincidence? I think not!”

Jacob rolls his eyes. “She was perfectly fine while we hung out. You saw it in my head!” 

“That was _your_ interpretation of how it went down. You were probably torturing her the whole time, and she was too polite to say anything about it!”

“Oh, _real nice_ , Quil-”

Embry stops walking, causing Jacob to stumble into him. “Bailey’s car isn’t here,” he says.

Jacob steps back, whipping his eyes around the parking lot. During his squabble with Quil, he didn’t realize they were already here, but like Embry mentioned, her car is missing. He squints. This is definitely the usual time when she’s on shift, and she’s never missed one before.

“Maybe she walked?” Quil wonders.

Embry shakes his head and glances at the sky. “In this weather? Doubt it.” 

It was unseasonably cold for May. The weather felt like nothing to them, but it certainly wouldn’t be a comfortable temperature for Bailey to suddenly forgo her car in favor of walking all the way here. 

Regardless, they head into the restaurant. Embry waves down a familiar face, the waitress named Tracey, and asks her if Bailey is available. She shakes her head at them all, and lets them know Bailey called out today.

“Is she sick?” Embry asks.

Tracey shrugs. “I just know she called out. That’s it. Sorry I can’t be of more help.” 

It’s a dead end, but Embry quietly thanks her anyway. They return to the parking lot, scratching their heads. Quil begins to pace in a circle and Embry looks lost in thought.

Jacob thinks back to the previous weekend and knows in his gut Bailey was genuinely cheerful when they were at her house. There was no misjudgment there, of that he’s positive. He can only guess whatever was bothering her throughout the week has finally come to head, but they just can’t put a finger on what it could possibly be. 

Quil stops his pacing and scowls. “You’re her imprint. Shouldn’t you, like, I don’t know, Spidey-sense what’s wrong or whatever?” he demands.

Jacob sighs. “It doesn’t work that way, dude.” 

“What good is it then?!” 

That makes Jacob snort. “Wouldn’t we all like to know?” he mutters.

“Obviously something is really wrong if she decided to call out of all things,” Embry says, coming out of his trance. 

“And she didn’t even tell us,” Quil grumbles. 

Embry shakes his head. “How could she? She doesn’t have any of our numbers.” 

“She could’ve left a message with the hostess or something!” 

“Maybe she didn’t say anything because she didn’t _want_ to. Maybe she doesn’t like sharing her problems with other people.” Embry glances at Jacob with knowing eyes, and Jacob has to fight a flinch. The guy never misses a thing. 

Quil abruptly turns around to walk away from them. “Then let’s go to her house and make sure it’s not something else! What if something bad happened?”

“She might want to be left alone, Quil.” Embry’s words stop Quil in his tracks.

That sparks an idea in Jacob’s head. “Dad knew Diana. Maybe… Maybe he has her number. We could give her a call first?” he suggests.

Quil barely looks mollified. “If she doesn’t answer, we’re going over there,” he grumbles. 

He sets a brisk pace to Jacob’s house with an impatience that Jacob and Embry don’t bother questioning. They’re equally concerned about what could be wrong with their friend and just as eager to resolve the issue.

When Jacob’s red clapboard home comes into view, they pick up the pace. Quil is the first one through the door, barely giving Jacob enough time to yell out a greeting to his father. 

Billy is in the living room with an odd shaped chunk of wood in his lap and a carving knife in his hand. Wood shavings fall into a plastic bag at his feet. The TV is on, playing a repeat of a Mariner’s game from last season. 

He looks up from his lap with surprise in his eyes. The noise from the game is swallowed into silence when he takes the remote in his hand. His eyes dart between all of them and their serious expressions.

“Hey, boys,” he says cautiously. His eyes flit to Jacob. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

Quil steps forward and blurts out, “Do you have Bailey’s number?” 

Billy narrows his eyes and purses his lips. “Bailey Silver? What do you want with her?” he asks.

Now Embry and Quil turn to Jacob with confused expressions, and it makes him sigh. He never mentioned the imprint to his father, because he feared the man would ask too many invasive questions about it, confuse him with cryptic riddles, or, even worse, _congratulate_ him for it. His father seems to be under the impression that everything about Jacob’s supernatural life is wonderful news and that all the pros outweigh the cons.

More than a few times his father has ranted about how much he wishes _he_ were a wolf like the rest of them, and it’s precisely why Jacob doesn’t like to mention things about himself or the pack if he can help it. If his father truly understood how terrifying this life could be at times, he wouldn’t be saying those things.

Jacob runs a hand through his hair. “We’ve sort of become friends recently. And, uh, she’s my imprint.” 

His father’s eyes go impossibly wide. “ _That’s_ where you’ve been disappearing to lately?” 

“Yes, but it’s not what you think.” 

Billy raises a brow. “And what do _you_ think I’m thinking?”

Jacob isn’t in the mood to decipher his father’s thoughts. “I don’t know, but if you’re thinking grandkids you’ve got it all wrong.” 

“But do you love ‘er, son?” he presses.

“Dad! No,” Jacob shouts. He tries to quell his voice. “We’re friends. _Just_ friends.” 

“Alright, alright.” Billy gives him a curious look. “You’ve just been different recently. Must’ve been since you met her.” 

Jacob blinks. “Different?” 

“Better. You were moping around for a couple weeks, remember?” He pauses when Jacob grudgingly nods. “So something good must’ve come out of this thing. That’s all that matters to me.”

Jacob blinks a few more times, waiting for more, but Billy doesn’t say anything else. He just stares up at Jacob with an earnest expression. That was _it_? It’s probably the least invasive thing his father has ever said in his life.

Quil clears his throat impatiently. “So, her number?” 

Billy gives him a sour look. “You in a rush?” 

“She’s upset. She’s been upset all week,” Quil explains. “We were gonna call to make sure she’s okay, or go over there if she isn’t.”

Understanding darkens Billy’s eyes. He leans back in his chair. “Ah. You boys don’t know what today is.” 

“It’s the twelfth,” Embry supplies. 

Billy nods. “It’s the anniversary of her father’s death. He died four years ago today.” He tilts his head when Quil swears aloud. “You boys wouldn’t know. It was a quiet funeral. People didn’t have much respect for him when he got into drugs and whatnot.”

Internally, Jacob curses those women they ran into last weekend. 

Quil growls, his thoughts on the same track as Jacob’s. “Those bitches have impeccable timing, huh? They just _had_ to add more salt to the wound. Fuck that. Fuck them!” 

Billy raises a brow but doesn’t ask him to elaborate. “Her sister _did_ ask me to check on her every now and then, so… it’s probably best you give her a call. I know the landline.” 

Jacob punches in the numbers as his father rattles them off. Embry and Quil crowd him as the phone rings a few times. Finally, a gruff voice answers the phone with a flat, “Yeah.” Jacob pulls the phone away from his ear to stare at it for half a second and turns his eyes to his friends. They both shrug and look equally confused.

Jacob returns the phone to his ear. “...Paul?”

There’s an annoyed sigh. “This isn’t a good time, Black.” 

“I know. I know about today. I just… wanted to check in,” Jacob says. “Can you put her on?” 

There’s indiscernible murmuring and shuffling noises on the other end. After a few seconds, Bailey rasps, “Hi Jacob.” She sounds terrible.

“Hey, we missed you at work today,” he says lightly. 

She sniffles. “Oh, yeah. I’m sorry.” 

Quil snatches the phone and ignores Jacob’s glare. “Don’t apologize. We’re fine. We wanna make sure _you’re_ okay.”

“Quil?” 

“Yep. Embry’s here, too.” Quil shoves the phone in Embry’s face. 

“That I am,” Embry confirms. 

“You guys are sweet.” She sniffs again. “I’ll see you guys on Monday, okay? I don’t wanna bring you guys down with my mood more than I already have.” 

Quil brings the phone back to his ear. “No, we wanna see you anyway, even when you’re sad. We can take it, and we got your back.”

Bailey winces. “This is too much for friends I’ve just met.”

“Get out of your head, silly girl. The amount of time we’ve known each other isn’t important,” Quil says. “What matters is how you feel. And you feel close to us, don’t you?” 

Bailey shudders. “But that doesn’t make any _sense_.”

Jacob takes the phone back, echoing what she said to him once. “We’re beyond the realm of normal people, remember?” She makes a sound that he can’t distinguish. He presses, “So come here if you need a distraction. We don’t even have to talk if you don’t want to. We can just sit in my garage and I’ll play some music.” 

Silence is her answer until he hears shuffling noises again. 

“She nodded. I’ll drop her before my shift starts,” Paul says. 

He hangs up before Jacob can say anything else. Jacob ends the call on his end with a scowl. The guy could be so rude sometimes.

“I have patrol with Paul. I’ll miss everything,” Quil complains. “Why’s _he_ hogging her?”

Jacob shrugs. “He’s her brother.” 

Embry scowls at that. “So are we,” he insists.

* * *

Paul shows up just before sundown to drop Bailey off. He pulls his truck into the driveway. Through the windshield, Jacob can see her tucked under Paul’s arm with a hood pulled over head. The dark bruises under her red rimmed eyes make her look like she hasn’t had a proper sleep. Her lashes are dark and wet, and her cheeks are speckled with red. 

Quil gets to her first, yanking open the passenger door and pulling her to him. She quickly throws her arms around him and makes a wounded sound in the back of her throat. He knocks her hoodie back and presses a chaste kiss to her temple. 

“We’ll get through it one day at a time, yeah?” he murmurs into her hair. She nods. 

Of course, out of all of them Quil could relate to her the most. He lost both of his birth parents when he was young, too young to remember them except in flickers. Old Quil and his wife Joy were the only parents he’s really known, but he still feels the loss every now and then.

He holds her for a few more seconds and pulls away with an annoyed sigh. 

Bailey looks up at him with watery eyes. “What’s wrong?” 

Quil gives her a regretful smile. “I have to patrol with Paul right now.” 

Bailey glances between him and Paul, looking overwhelmed and strained. Her lip wobbles. It makes Quil panic.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he pleads weakly.

Still, she starts to softly cry like she can’t help it. Embry steps in, lightly grasping her shoulders and moving his thumbs in gentle circles. 

“Shh…” he soothes. “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” 

Her eyes turn to him, but it seems like there’s no end to the tears. She has a difficult time speaking through her sobs. “I-I don’t k-know,” she hiccups. Her own confusion aggravates her further. A fine trembling racks her frame, and he can hear louder sobs building in their throat. 

Paul glares holes into him through the windshield, and the steering wheel groans under the pressure of his squeezing fingers. “You better fucking do something, Jacob,” he growls. He looks like he’s about two seconds away from bursting from his skin.

Jacob swallows harshly. He soothes a hand against her head, and it’s not an electric shock of excitement he’s learned to brace for. He can feel her stress, now borderline hysteria, radiating from her scalp and pushing against his palm. 

An odd sensation of something being _pulled_ from within him makes Jacob flinch and take his hand away. 

Bailey yelps, turning her eyes to him. He’s grown used to them, to their influence, but now they’re screaming at him with a wild urgency. Whatever he felt just then, she felt it, too. 

She completely turns away from Embry to latch onto Jacob and burrows against him. It’s an echo of how she clung to him when she was upset last weekend, but the only difference is the lack of a hat covering her head like she had before.

Curious, Jacob brings his hand to her hair again, and that strange sensation thrums in his palm once more. He can feel her anxiousness again.

Losing a parent is all-consuming. It’s a terrible song and dance he had to go through once, but she’s done it three times. To make matters worse, she’s dealing with tight-lipped supernaturals at the same time. It’s a lot to deal with all at once, and he can _feel_ the charged energy of it push past the barrier of his skin. 

At the same time he feels that pulling sensation again, and it feels contrastingly pleasant. Bailey’s shuddering slows, and she relaxes in increments. He marvels at the invisible movement in his hand just from the contact of her skin alone, as if he’s recycling her energy. 

Jacob looks up in shock. Embry watches with calculating eyes, and Paul watches from the car with unreadable ones. 

Quil grins. “Maybe that thing is good for something after all.” He turns, and knocks on Paul’s passenger window. 

The door unlocks, and Quil quietly asks if he’s ready to go. Paul nods curtly, not moving his burning eyes from Jacob’s as he turns the ignition. Bailey turns until her ear is pressed against his chest and watches the car disappear. 

“I’ll head off too,” Embry murmurs. He squeezes her shoulder again. “You look like you’re in good hands.”

She silently watches Embry walk off, and tucks her face back into Jacob’s chest when a breeze blows her hair. He gathers her hands curled into his shirt and looks into her wet, exhausted eyes. 

“Let me show you the garage. It’s warmer in there.”

Jacob ushers her to the path behind his house that leads to his homemade garage, hand in hand. The first thing she glances at is the Rabbit, and then her eyes flit to the other two cars parked at the other end of the garage.

“Those are other folk’s cars I’m working on. They love to gossip about me, but it doesn’t stop them from asking to get their car fixed,” he explains with an eye roll. Bailey huffs at that and closes her eyes with a small smile.

He doesn’t have a comfortable selection of seating in the garage, so he brings her inside the Rabbit. He turns the electric system on and cranks up the radio. There’s no need to turn on the heat since he’s a living furnace.

Bailey leans her head on his shoulder and weaves her arm through his, soaking in his warmth. He presses his cheek to her head, watching as she fidgets with his hand. Hers is tiny compared to his, and he can feel the texture from the nicks and calluses on her palms. Still, her hand feels much softer against his.

A familiar song comes on the radio– _Edge of Seventeen_ , of all things– and Jacob is instantly reminded of his nightmares. He quickly turns the station with a scowl, as he still hasn’t quite gotten over that one yet. He doesn’t want to think about the ghoulish creature that posed as his mother or how the thing subsequently turned into a vampirized Bella. 

Jacob almost freezes. _Bella_.

He hasn’t thought about her in weeks. Sitting in the Rabbit, holding onto Bailey’s hand, reminds of the things he and Bella used to do together in his little garage. It was a better, simpler time.

Finally, Bailey speaks again. “You were humming that before,” she murmurs. 

Jacob shakes off the reverie as he processes her words. “What?” 

“That song. You were humming it after we had that run in with those aunties.” 

He was? “I didn’t realize.”

“Probably because I was crying, which is apparently all I do these days,” Bailey mumbles. 

“No way,” he denies. She makes a sound of disagreement. “Alright, then tell me happy things about you to make up for it.”

Bailey pauses to think. “My sister is coming home next week. She graduates tomorrow.” 

“That’s great! You haven’t seen her in a while, right?” 

She nods against his shoulder. “Yeah. I’m picking her up from SeaTac on Wednesday. I’ll be on a later shift that day.” 

Jacob mentally takes note of that. “What else?” 

“That date with Joe’s grandson the other day, I guess.” She shrugs. “We got Hibachi in the gentrified part of Port Ange. I even put on _jeans_.”

Jacob laughs. “Wow, sounds like you went all out for him. Think you’ll go out again?” 

Bailey’s nose scrunches up. “No. He kisses like a dog.” 

“Too much tongue?” 

“ _Way_ too much.” 

They both laugh, and it fills Jacob with a hope that they’ve started to make some headway with the funk she’s in. Bailey squeezes his fingers, and he wonders if she could suddenly read his mind.

She lifts her head from his shoulder and glances around. “This rebuild is really nice. Pimp My Ride should hire you.” 

Jacob tips his head at the compliment. “Thanks,” he says. “But check _this_ out!”

He opens the glove compartment, showing off his stash of crackers, pretzels, jerky and Caprisuns. 

Bailey bursts out with laughter. “Seth wasn’t kidding about your snack preference!”

“What if my car breaks down on the side of the road and I need food to survive? You have to be prepared for anything!” 

She takes a juice pouch and pops the straw inside with a smile. “You’re such a kid,” she murmurs. 

“You’re only a year older,” Jacob reminds her. 

Bailey snorts, “Yeah, but you’re the one who’s still in high school. You’re in the same year as Quil and Embry, aren’t you?” 

“Yeah, but I don’t have much bandwidth for school. I don’t know when I’ll go back.” The thought alone throws him into a foul mood, and Bailey grimaces.

“Now _you_ tell me something happy,” she says. When he can’t think of anything, she taps the wooden turtle charm hanging from his rearview mirror. “Where’d this little guy come from?” 

Jacob perks up. “I made it,” he says eagerly. Without thinking, he grabs her hand and pulls her from the car.

His makeshift workbench is littered with the tiny figurines he’s worked on. The variety of his collection really shows off his growth with the craft, and he points out the ones he’s most proud of, even if some of them aren’t as nice looking as he would’ve preferred. 

He’s in the middle of explaining the difference between all the knives he has when he realizes he might be talking too much. A wave of shyness washes over him, making his ears burn. He turns to Bailey with a sheepish expression, but she stares back with excitement shining in her eyes.

“Why’d you stop?” she demands.

Jacob hesitates. “You… you’re not bored with this kind of talk?”

She vehemently shakes her head. “Are you kidding me? I _love_ knives. I’m always on the hunt for a good knife to add to the kitchen.” Her eyes turn back to the table, and she snatches up a rudimentary looking fox. “And look at all the cute things you made! With a _knife_!”

His ears burn even worse. “My dad is much better at it than me.” 

Bailey glances between the fox and him disbelievingly. “Better than _this_?” She narrows her eyes at his nod, like she still doesn’t believe him. “Is your dad home?” 

“Yeah,” he replies warily. 

“Mind if I pop in and say hi?” Jacob panics, and it must show on his face because she follows up with, “What’s wrong?”

Jacob shakes his head. “Nothing! just- the house isn’t... cleaned for company.” She _can’t_ go in there. _Nobody_ can go in there.

Bailey nods slowly. “That’s okay, Jacob. I’ll be in and out,” she says. “I can’t come to his house and not say anything to the man.” 

In and out. Perfect. 

He brings her inside, careful to keep her in the living room only, and she chats amicably with his father on the couch. It’s going fine until Billy insists she stay for dinner, and his stomach abruptly drops to his feet. 

Bailey looks between Billy and Jacob with wide eyes, and opens her mouth, probably to worm her way out of this situation, when the doorbell rings. 

“I called ahead,” Billy explains. Jacob eyes him with betrayal and stomps to the door to pay the stupid delivery man.

Bailey stands in the middle of the living room with unsure eyes until Billy tugs on her hand.

“S’alright,” he murmurs. She reluctantly follows him into the kitchen, glancing over her shoulder to mouth ‘sorry’ to Jacob, but _he’s_ the sorry one. 

Bailey scrunches her shoulders around her ears and keeps her gaze locked on her hands clasped in her lap as she sits at the dining table. Jacob sets down the pizza and opens the box with an angry jerk of his hand. 

“I haven’t had Manny’s pizza in years,” she says lamely.

“Best pizza money can buy ‘round here,” Billy says. He winks at her. “They got nothin’ on those hand pies of yours, though. Those were real good by the way, sweetheart.” 

She tucks her hands under her chin and grins. “That’s great! It was my first time making them. I was testing a new recipe,” she gushes. 

Billy pats her knee. “First time? That cooking program did you good, huh?” He laughs. “You do _not_ want me in the kitchen! Good thing we don’t keep much around here because I’ll destroy it all in one go.” 

Jacob shrinks with shame, despite Billy’s joking tone. “I’ll… I’ll try to go to the grocery store tomorrow, Dad…I’m sorry I didn’t make any time to do it. I’ll switch some things around and-” 

Billy turns to him with wide eyes and shakes his head. “Jake, I don’t expect you to be responsible for me. I’m your father. If I need something, I’ll ask. I can take care of myself just fine-” 

“I can do it,” Bailey blurts out. Billy stares at her like she’s grown two heads, and Jacob can feel the same surprise plastered on his face. She elaborates, “I can do meal prep on weekends. I’ll get the groceries and everything. I used to do it as a side gig when I was in high school.” 

Jacob tries to hold it in, but the offer puts him into a rage. “It’s none of your business. We don’t need your charity,” he spits.

More than anything, the idea that _he_ needs help in his own home is embarrassing. She wasn’t supposed to know about any of this. Why would his father invite her in, and say those things in front of her? What the hell was he trying to pull? Was he _trying_ to advertise that Jacob wasn’t doing a good job taking care of him?

He isn’t aware he’s no longer sitting at the table until he hears Bailey calling after him. Glancing around, he realizes he’s been standing outside in the dark. For how long, he’s not sure. His neck prickles when he feels and hears Bailey’s approach.

She steps in front of him and takes his hand, and he feels the push and pull of comforting waves being directed to _him._ It only makes him feel worse. He snatches his hand away.

“Please don’t,” Jacob begs. He’s not willing to share this part of himself, as hypocritical as it sounds, but his father just inadvertently forced that wound wide open for her to see. He was supposed to be helping _her_ , not the other way around. It’s humiliating.

“I don’t need _this_ ,” he gestures wildly between them. “Don’t use that magic thing on me. You can’t brainwash me to feel okay about a situation that will _never be okay_.”

It’s absolutely the wrong thing to say. He doesn’t mean it, but he’s angry, and stupid, irrational things tend to fly from his mouth when he’s in that state.

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” she snaps. Her hands ball into fists as she continues to stare at him with incredulous eyes. “Is that what you think you did to _me_?”

Jacob knows he’s digging himself into a hole, but he can’t bring himself to stop. “Magic can’t cure all my problems! I should be able to get by without it, like I always have! If you weren’t here, I would’ve figured it out on my own–”

Bailey scoffs, kicking a pebble near her foot. “You know, I’m a little offended by that.” She pauses. “Scratch that. I’m _very_ offended. Did you use that thing on me because you think _I’m_ not able to get by without it?”

Her words make Jacob stop short. “No,” he mumbles. “You… you were upset, and you needed comfort.”

Hypocrite. He’s a goddamn hypocrite. 

Bailey’s lip wobbles, but she soldiers on. “And do I look magically cured of my parent's deaths to you?” she asks quietly. Jacob's words get trapped in his throat.

Another voice interrupts them. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” It’s Quil. “You’re supposed to be making her feel better, not making her more upset!”

They both turn to see Paul and Quil walking toward them from the shadows. Quil steps forward, looking like he wants to pummel Jacob. Paul’s expression is carefully blank.

“Quil.” Bailey’s voice stops him. He shifts his gaze to her. “I got it.”

Quil grumbles about it, but he keeps his hands to himself.

Bailey sighs and crosses her arms. “I’m not giving you charity, Jacob,” she says softly. “I’m giving you my _time_. You shouldn’t have to worry about…” She glances at the boys beside her and amends, “You don’t have to take that on by yourself.” 

“I said I don’t need it,” he snaps.

Paul growls reflexively back at him, and Bailey cringes away from the sound. The growl dies in his throat. Bailey stares uncomfortably at her shoes for a few seconds. When her eyes lift, they pierce Jacob.

“Why is it when you help me, it’s comfort, but when I try to help _you,_ it’s brainwashing from the imprint?” she asks.

Bailey waits, but Jacob says nothing. He can’t. He doesn’t know the answer. She turns to Paul and Quil instead. “Give me ten minutes.”

She turns on her heel and marches towards the door, leaving Jacob, who’s frozen in shock, outside. He listens as she asks Billy to write down foods he likes and dislikes, as well as his spice tolerance and a grocery budget. She promises to return in the morning. 

There’s a moment of silence, and Bailey mutters, “What is it?” 

Billy chuckles. “You reminded me of Diana.”

Jacob forces his feet to move and walks back inside, ignoring the glares from Paul and Quil. He sits down at the table with a scowl, watching Bailey ignore him in favor of surveying the cooking tools they have and what needs to be cleaned. Billy scribbles on a notepad, peeking up at him with reprimanding eyes. Jacob snatches a slice of pizza and shovels it into his mouth to stop himself from saying anything else.

Bailey flits back to the table when Billy finishes, skimming over the paper with a nod. She leaves after a quick goodbye to his father and barely glances at Jacob. 

Billy waits until Jacob gets to his third slice of pizza before he speaks. “She’s a sweet girl, Jake. She’s just trying to help.” 

“I know,” he replies sullenly.

* * *

Jacob is awoken from his sleep in the early morning by the odd prickling sensation that always crops up when Bailey is nearby. He climbs out of his bed and shuffles through the kitchen and living room to open the door. Bailey is standing on the porch with a hand poised to knock. 

“H-Hey,” she mumbles, lowering her fist.

A bunch of grocery bags are at her feet. They’re from Safeway, which is a grocery store that’s an hour away from La Push. On a _good_ day. It’s entirely too much. He starts, ready to shoot down this operation _right this instant_ , but Bailey puts her hand up to stop him. 

“We live in a food desert, Jacob. I could write an entire dissertation about it, but I won’t bore you with things you already know,” she says. “And before you think I went out of my way to do something special, you should know I go there to get my own stuff, too.” 

Jacob scowls and wordlessly bends to gather all the bags in his hands. 

“You don’t have to…” She trails off, as he’d already walked off with them all. He sets the bags on the dining table. 

“It’s a pigsty in here, and you shouldn’t be doing this,” Jacob warns.

Bailey snorts. “You’ve never worked in a restaurant before. This is nothing.”

Jacob looks away. He doesn’t have a response to that.

Bailey sighs and it’s loud with frustration. “If you really hate me doing this, then say the word and I’ll leave,” she says. “But you have to _say_ it, Jacob. Not give me the silent treatment.”

Still, he says nothing. 

“Oh my God,” she mutters under her breath. She starts unpacking a bag. “You take pride to a whole new level.”

“I’m worried about him, okay?!” he says hotly. “And it’s no one else’s job to worry about him except me! It’s always been my job. My sister’s aren’t here. There’s _nobody else_.” 

“And I’m saying I’m right here!” Bailey counters, dropping the peppers in her hand. “This is insanity, Jacob. Your sisters are older than Kendra so they must’ve graduated more than three years ago-”

“Four,” he corrects. “They’ve been gone for four years.”

Bailey gapes at him. “Is that how long you’ve been doing this all by yourself? Since you were a _child_?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s in the past,” he says dismissively.

She throws her hands up. “It’s not in the past if it’s affecting you right now!” Her fingers stab into his chest. “ _You_ are supposed to be in high school, and your only worry should be graduating! But you’re missing school _and_ you’re worried sick about Billy because whatever you’re doing with Sam is eating up all your time.”

Jacob backs away from her with wide eyes. “I’ll manage,” he bites out.

“And you are gonna burn yourself out.” Her eyes turn pleading. “I like cooking. You _know_ that. This isn’t a strain for me at all, and it would be one less thing for you to worry about. So… let me help you.” 

Jacob can’t find it within himself to accept it. He goes back to his room to stew about it for a few minutes. The sounds from the kitchen certainly don’t help, but he thanks whatever measly lucky stars he has left that it’s mere minutes until his patrol shift starts. He slips from his bedroom through the window and decides to get a head start.

He’s on patrol with Seth this time, who Jacob begs to let him have this shift on his own. Seth eagerly agrees, happy to have free time and none the wiser, and Jacob has a few hours of silence all to himself. He uses the time to gather his thoughts, and to practice _not_ saying stupid things for when he returns home. 

Something about how Bailey _knew_ things about him without him having to say anything was unnerving. He’s always been an open person, with the exception of the few things he’s horded to himself, but she was starting to be able to read him like a book. She even had enough gall to be able to poke at things he didn’t want to talk about and would force him to speak on it anyway. A part of him reluctantly appreciated it.

By the time his shift ends, Jacob thinks he’s pieced enough of his thoughts together to be able to say what needs to be said. When he returns, Billy is finally awake. He’s in front of the TV again, watching the news and sipping from a mug. There’s a plate of peanut butter toast in his lap. He’s very obviously trying not to make a comment at Jacob.

Jacob rolls his eyes and moves on to the kitchen. He barely recognizes it. It’s cleaner than he’s ever seen, probably in his entire life. There’s a bunch of tupperware full of food neatly stacked on the table.

Bailey is facing away from him, trying to put a blender back on a high shelf. Jacob briefly imagines the thing toppling over, and he quickly steps behind her to grasp it before his imagination becomes a reality. 

His other hand clutches the counter as he pushes the blender back in its place. Slowly, he brings his hand down until Bailey is bracketed between his long arms. She looks impossibly smaller than him as she ducks her head, bringing her shoulders up to her ears.

He sighs heavily, centering himself for what he’s about to say. 

Bailey shifts her feet. “Jacob-”

“This feels… wrong. Shameful,” Jacob murmurs. Everything is falling apart in his home because of him, and _she’s_ the one cleaning up his mess.

Bailey’s head shoots back up, and she spins to stare at him with apologetic eyes. “Jacob, I didn’t mean– it wasn’t my intention to do something like that. I just… this is the only thing I can do...” She crosses her arms in front of her.

“I know. It’s just… it’s just hard to see someone else do something that I’ve been… completely failing at for so long.” Jacob shuts his eyes.

“You were _not_ failing. You did the best you could with the means you had.” 

“And it’s even harder to feel grateful or attempt to say thank you when I’m also embarrassed about this whole thing,” he grits out. 

“Then don’t say it,” she whispers. “I don’t need to hear it. That’s not what I did this for.” 

He lifts his gaze in surprise. Sincerity radiates from those strange black eyes of hers. As he stares back, something warm and peculiar coils in his belly. 

Jacob swallows noisily and turns his gaze to his feet, taken aback. _What the hell was that?_

Bailey misinterprets his reaction. “Am I upsetting you?” she asks.

“No,” he replies quickly, hoping his nerves don’t leech into his voice. “I’m not used to this. Having someone else do everything and I do… nothing.”

She nods in understanding and ducks under his arm. “Okay. We can fix that,” she chirps, gathering some of the tupperware from the table into her arms. “You can start by helping me put all this away. How does that sound?” 

Jacob huffs with laughter, pushing down that strange feeling to deal with another time. “Yeah, sure. Sounds good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I started writing a Twilight x Kill Bill AU centered around Leah, inspired by [my own tumblr shitpost](https://musingsofvenus.tumblr.com/post/640323700553596928/another-update-taha-aki-is-taking-the-role-of-pai/). So um, prepare for that in the future. In the meantime, leave me a review?


	12. Deluge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the previous chapter, Bailey and Jacob were on the cusp of a new arc. Now we're pivoting the attention to Kendra and Paul, who will take the forefront as we explore their arc!

Kendra is on a flight back to Washington, staring out the window as the ground gradually becomes more visible and shapes become more discernible. Rain pelts against her window as the plane passes through a patch of dark clouds, so unlike the weather she had grown used to in the desert of New Mexico. 

Her feelings war between excited and anxious at the thought of coming back home. Aside from the funeral, Kendra has not stepped foot on the reservation for two years. It was always her intention to move back home after graduation, but now it feels odd to return knowing that all the ghosts she left behind are still there, only now they’ve grown teeth. The miasma that fell over the rez became more onerous in her absence as more boys got caught up in its influence. She isn’t quite sure how she’s going to deal with that yet.

When the plane finally lands and taxis along the tarmac, Kendra stays in her seat while the other passengers rush around her to gather their bags. She remains seated even as the plane comes to a stop, opting to wait for the crowd to dissipate before she attempts to pick up her belongings. 

She pulls out her phone from her pocket, idly clicking around until she finds the message thread between her and Leah. It’s filled with text after text from Kendra, all left unanswered since early March. She texts _Just landed_ to Leah and sighs. 

The drive home will be about three hours from SeaTac. If Leah doesn’t answer between that time, she still plans to show up at her house anyway, ready or not, and– 

Her phone dings, and Leah’s name pops up on the screen. _I’ll be home,_ her response says. 

Kendra rolls her eyes and pockets her phone. “Well, I’m glad she fucking answered _this_ time,” she mutters under her breath. 

In the seat next to her a young mother glares in her direction, eyes darting between Kendra and the toddler that is presumably the mother’s son. Kendra smirks. 

“Sorry,” she says, not meaning it one bit. The woman turns away with an annoyed sniff, and Kendra turns her eyes back to the window to wait.

The plane is nearly empty when Kendra finally decides to pull out her carry-on. All she brought with her were two heavy garment bags that rattle and chime as she handles them. They’re custom dance costumes to be shipped out to a dancing pair in Montana, and she couldn’t trust a bag attendant to handle them with the care they required. She put in way too many hours on the fine details for them to get ruined, and she’s depending on the pay from this order to last her for the rest of the month until she finds her next gig.

She takes her time walking through the terminals to get to baggage claim and collect her one suitcase. As she heads for the exit, she’s greeted by the sound of her younger sister’s excited screaming. A grin stretches across her face.

Bailey is running toward her at full speed with a handful of colorful balloons flying behind her and a matching smile on her face. Kendra barely has enough time to let go of her suitcase handle to catch her sister in one arm, the other arm holding the garment bags out of harm’s way.

“I missed you,” Bailey gushes against her neck. 

Kendra laughs. “We’ve been separated for longer periods of time before,” she gently reminds her. In her two years away from the rez, they would see each other for some holidays with long stretches of months in between visits.

Bailey pulls back, shaking her head. “It feels different,” she insists, thrusting the balloons in front of her. “Congratulations, college grad!” 

“Why thank you, madam.” Kendra gives an exaggerated bow and gently takes the balloons. They all have various congratulatory phrases on them.

Bailey grimaces, twiddling with a lock of her hair. “Sorry I wasn’t at the ceremony...” 

Kendra punches her arm and argues, “We went over this. We couldn’t afford-” 

“We couldn’t afford two more plane tickets. I know,” Bailey huffs. “But _still_ , it was a big day!”

“And we can still celebrate it!” Kendra says. “Hell, we can go out tonight.”

“I get off at nine tonight. I guess we could if I can change first…” 

“Can we discuss this in the car? It’s freezing.” Even with a thick turtleneck on, Kendra still felt like she was dressed inappropriately for the chilly weather.

Bailey eyes her up and down. “The desert turned you into a wimp.”

“Shut up! You had time to get used to the weather!”

Bailey dances out of the way of another mock punch, grabbing the suitcase and rolling it down the lot designated for passenger pickup. Kendra follows after her with a fond smile.

“By the way, did you leave the car idling? You can get a ticket for that, you know.” 

Bailey pauses her trot and spins to walk backwards. “Ah… I didn’t come by myself,” she says with a guilty smile. 

Kendra stops walking altogether, already catching on to her sister’s behavior. “Tell me you did not drive three hours here with those cult boys!” She seethes at Bailey’s grimace. “Tell me I don’t have to sit three hours on the way back home with one of those cult boys!” 

Bailey groans, holding up her hands in surrender. “Relax! A bunch of people are either disappearing or turning up dead in Seattle according to the news! Did you want me to get axe murdered on my way here?”

“How do you know we won’t get axe murdered by one of _them_?” she asks sourly. Bailey turns on her heel with a harrumph and ignores that comment. Kendra follows after her with a curse. 

And, as she feared, there is an overgrown man sitting in the driver’s seat of her precious mustang. He gets out of the car to take the suitcase from Bailey and put it in the trunk for her. Kendra walks right up to him with a scowl on her face, already annoyed that he’s absolutely too tall to be intimidated by her like she wants.

“Are you Jacob?” she demands. 

The guy looks down at her with wide eyes and opens his mouth, but Bailey cuts him off. “This is Embry. _Be. Nice_ ,” she hisses. 

Kendra’s hackles lower. This Embry kid offers her a soft smile; it gentles his features significantly, and he suddenly looks much younger in the face. 

“Nice to meet you.” Even his voice is soft, like velvet. It’s disarming and irritating at the same time.

“Same,” she mutters as politely as she can, turning her gaze to Bailey. “Didn’t want to put your _soulmate_ in the line of fire at 8am?” 

Her sister leans around Embry with a fake smile. “Jacob was busy,” she says between her teeth.

 _“_ We should get going,” Embry interrupts, looking amused at the both of them. Bailey sticks her tongue out and nods, heading for the driver’s seat. Embry grasps her shoulders and steers her to the passenger door instead.

“But you drove here,” Bailey protests. 

“And I’ll drive back,” Embry retorts. 

Bailey pouts but doesn’t protest further. Kendra gets in the backseat, shoving the balloons to the floor so they don’t block the back window. The car is quiet for a few minutes as Embry pulls out of the airport and merges back onto the highway. He’s somewhat of a speed demon, but he weaves past the other cars like some kind of professional so Kendra holds her tongue.

Bailey twists in the passenger seat with curious eyes. “Are you still talking to Leah today?” 

“Yeah,” Kendra murmurs.

Embry clears his throat. “You’re gonna see Leah?” he asks.

Kendra meets his eyes as they glance at her through the rearview mirror. “Yes. She’s my friend,” she replies defensively. “I assume you know Seth, since he’s one of Sam’s groupies like you.”

“Kendra!” Bailey hisses.

“It’s fine,” Embry murmurs with a shrug. “She’s not wrong.”

“And you cosign this soulmate bullshit, too?” Kendra continues.

Embry’s response is short and cryptic. “It’s not what you think.”

Kendra waits for an elaboration, but she gets nothing from him. She wants to press and pester Bailey for more information, but she feels less inclined to talk in front of Embry about something that seems personal. She decides to drop the topic altogether when the radio is switched on to a rock station at a low volume. Bailey hums along to the lyrics as she turns back around.

As they go further down the familiar highway and the dark trees grow more dense as a light fog settles in the air, Kendra is hit with a wave of nostalgia. As much as she will miss the warmth and the constant rays of sun of the desert, a part of her missed the cold and the rain and the lush forests. Something about it always felt comforting and magical, and it was really all she knew.

 _Home sweet home_ , Kendra thinks as she fades into a light nap.

* * *

Embry drops them off at their house after the three hour drive with promises that he’ll visit Bailey at work tomorrow. The two sisters watch him jog down the driveway until he’s obscured by the trees. It’s the most peculiar thing Kendra has ever seen.

“Did he just-”

“You’ll get used to it,” Bailey shrugs. She jams the key into the lock and opens the door. “I’ll change into my uniform, and then I can drop you off at Leah’s.”

“Sure,” Kendra mumbles, still squinting to see if she can catch a glimpse of the mysterious boy. Bailey laughs at her efforts and rushes inside to her room.

Kendra follows when finally she gives up on trying to see where he went and drags her belongings into her room further down the hallway from Bailey’s. She leaves her suitcase in the middle of her room to unpack later, and hangs the garment bags on the clothing rack against the wall to her right. She sits on her bed and refuses to acknowledge how neat her room is, which could only be thanks to Paul for putting everything in its proper place. That damn boy knew her tendencies well. Too well.

Bailey glides into the doorway in a pair of black pants and a white chef coat, and her hair is pulled back into a tight bun. She smirks as she glances around the room.

“Don’t say it,” Kendra bites out.

Bailey raises a defiant brow and shrugs. Her sister, the almighty defender of Paul, always has nothing but praises for him because, rain or shine, she loves him to death as a brother. Maybe if he wasn’t such a sore spot she could appreciate that kind of loyalty, but all it does is make her want to throttle her sister sometimes.

“You gonna show me your degree?” Bailey asks instead, crossing her arms.

Kendra snorts and stands from her bed to unzip her suitcase. Beneath a layer of folded clothes to protect the glass of the frame sits her college degree. She holds it in front of her and poses with a cheesy smile as she hums the graduation marching song.

Bailey clears her throat, and her voice takes on a terrible British accent. “The Institute of American Indian Arts hereby confers upon Kendra Nicole Silver the degree ‘Associate of Fine Arts’ in Studio Arts.” She grins. “So educated!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kendra dismisses, placing the frame on her bed. “Take me to the Clearwater’s!”

Bailey holds her arm out. “Your chariot awaits, madam.”

“Ugh. Please stop.”

Kendra pulls a wool coat from her suitcase and stuffs her arms through the sleeves as she follows Bailey out of the house. The drive is a few short minutes, and they fill the time with chatter about the options for places they can go out to tonight.

Bailey slowly pulls to a stop in front of the Clearwater’s garage and eyes the house curiously. The house is a light blue, two story home with a white trim. There’s no other cars parked nearby, so Sue must not be home right now. 

Kendra unbuckles her seatbelt and sighs. “I’ll see you after work,” she says, trying to ignore her sudden nerves.

“Tell her I said hi,” Bailey says, her voice full of doubt. “Are you sure she’s there?”

“She’s there. She said she would be, so she is.” Leah was the one who set up this entire thing. She _has_ to be home.

Neither of them have to spend anymore time debating about it because the front door opens, and out steps Leah onto the porch in a pair of track shorts and a sweatshirt with a hood pulled over her head. Her arms are crossed, and her intense eyes go straight to Kendra in the passenger seat.

“Have fun,” Bailey mumbles, sinking in her seat.

Kendra doesn’t respond as she exits the car. She gives her sister a short wave and watches the mustang reverse out of the driveway and out of sight. She turns to face Leah, who quickly spins on her heel and vanishes back inside. Kendra takes in a deep gulp of air and hurries after her.

They are both silent as Leah walks up to her bedroom on the second floor. Leah closes the door, her back facing Kendra as she clenches her fists. Slowly, she pulls her hood down and turns.

Kendra drops her purse on the floor, fixing her eyes on Leah. She takes in her hair, once so long it reached her waist, now clipped to a grungy pixie cut. There are dark circles under her eyes, and a hard set to her mouth. The slight quiver in her stance stills when Kendra steps forward, and Leah’s eyes harden even more, as if she’s preparing for an attack.

After another quick sweep with her eyes, Kendra wraps her arms around Leah and squeezes her tight. Her skin radiates an unnatural heat beneath the cotton of her sweatshirt, but what Kendra focuses on is the way Leah stiffens even more.

Leah never liked to be touched this way since the break up. It’s too intimate of an action for her to accept unless it comes from her family now. She and Kendra are similar in that regard– quick to lash out at others in a moment of vulnerability. They were each their own forces of nature with their anger; Leah is an approaching hurricane, and Kendra is a churning volcano. It takes perseverance to bulldoze those kinds of walls.

Kendra ignores Leah when she tries to bat her arms away, squeezing even harder. “I’m sorry, Leah. I’m so sorry about everything,” she murmurs. “I wish I was here when it all happened.”

Leah’s trembles in her arms start up again and worsen, and like a dam, a floodgate of tears pour from her eyes. She wraps her overheated arms around Kendra and cries into her shoulder. Kendra says nothing as she rubs her back. 

There’s nothing more she could possibly say that can make Leah feel better and she knows it. She allows Leah to release her pent up emotions in silence until she’s calm enough to pull back.

Leah doesn’t speak either as she stares back at Kendra with bloodshot eyes. She wipes her nose with her sleeve and moves her gaze to the ground. After a few minutes, Kendra quietly encourages her to clean up in the bathroom. She returns to the bedroom after running the tap and splashing her face with water. 

She looks up from patting her face dry with a towel and gives Kendra a onceover with a twinkle in her eyes. “You definitely _look_ like you went to fashion school,” she murmurs.

Kendra rolls her eyes. The coat she’s wearing has a vividly colored geometric pattern on it, something she picked up at a market in Santa Fe and completely at odds with her neutral colored jeans and turtleneck. “It was a design school, not a fashion school. Besides, I’ve always had good taste.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Leah quips.

“I sleep perfectly fine,” Kendra says with a smirk, shrugging out of her coat. She hangs it on the back of the chair by Leah’s desk and sits. “You said there was something you needed to tell me.”

Leah’s nods, and she tosses the towel on her bed. “Yeah.” 

“Well?” Kendra prompts.

Leah takes a deep breath. “I can’t tell you-” 

“Leah-” 

“But I can show you,” Leah finishes. 

Kendra purses her lips. “Go on.”

Leah takes another deep breath, and pulls off her sweatshirt. Kendra’s eyes are pinned on the tattoo on her right shoulder, now visible because of the thin straps of her tank top. She abruptly stands, and the chair crashes into the desk behind her.

“No,” Kendra hisses, throwing her arm out as she sees red.

“Kendra-”

“Tell me that’s not what I think it is,” she spits. 

Leah holds her hands up. “Kendra...” 

“That nonsense ruined your _life_ , Leah! It ruined _my_ life!” Kendra shouts. “What are you _doing_ with them?! Of all the people– not you! Not _you_.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” Leah grits through her teeth. It’s the most unbelievable thing she’s heard today.

“It’s exactly what it looks like! What the _fuck_ is wrong with you!” Kendra knocks a few books from the shelf near her. It’s deeply unsatisfying. “Did you jump ship all of a sudden? You fucking traitor!” 

She snatches her coat from the chair and goes to storm out, but Leah grabs her wrist before she can make any real distance between them. She tries to yank her arm away, but Leah won’t budge. Her grip is shockingly strong. 

Kendra turns to scream in Leah’s face to let her go, but she stops short when she notices Leah looks green in the face. Her mouth keeps working like she’s trying to speak but the words won’t come forth. Leah gags instead, and Kendra cringes away. 

“What the fuck, Leah! Just spit it out!” 

Leah gasps like she’s coming up from water after being held under for too long. “I can’t. I can’t,” she moans miserably. 

Kendra takes the opportunity to snatch her wrist back and rubs the tender joints from her overpowering hold. She doesn’t know why she waits for Leah to collect herself. She can’t help but feel concerned– they _were_ friends until just a few seconds ago.

Leah scrubs her mouth with the back of her hand. “It’s Sam,” she hisses. “He made it so I can’t tell anyone what’s happening.” 

Kendra tries not to let her curiosity get the best of her, but she could never manage to shut her mouth when she wanted to know something badly enough. “What the hell are you talking about?” 

Leah opens her mouth again, and chokes. “Can’t,” she says in a garbled voice.

“I’m gonna need a little more than that,” Kendra retorts.

Leah pants and angles herself to show off the stupid tattoo on her shoulder. “Look at it, Kendra. What do you see?” 

“The stupid tribe pride thing that Sam made up,” she grumbles. 

“No,” Leah snaps. “Tell me what you _see_.” 

Kendra leans forward and looks at it closely. “Wolves. Two wolves in a circle,” she admits. 

Leah nods emphatically. “And what does that originate from?” 

“A bedtime story.” 

“ _About_?” 

“The creation myth of our tribe,” Kendra says, exasperated. She throws her hands up. “What about it?!”

Leah looks like she wants to say more, but she can’t. “Go stand on my bed,” she chokes out.

Kendra protests. “Why?” 

“Just do it!” Leah shouts. 

Kendra bristles and angrily steps into Leah’s space, too close for comfort. “Leah-” 

“Sam and Paul disappeared two years ago and never said a word about what happened. We both wanted answers. I have the answers now, but I can’t fucking tell you. I can only _show_ you. Do you wanna know or not?!” Kendra nods hesitantly and her eyes widen when Leah points at her bed in the corner. “Get on my bed, stand against the wall, and don’t move a fucking _inch_.”

Kendra backs away and toes off her boots as Leah stares at her with beady eyes. She climbs onto the bed and leans against the wall as instructed. Leah is still as a statue for a few agonizing seconds before she abruptly begins to undress.

Kendra shifts in confusion. “Um, Leah-”

“It sucks. Just go with it,” Leah interrupts. 

Before Kendra can say anything else, she watches Leah take a deep breath and fall forward. Into a giant white wolf.

At first, Kendra just stares blankly, her mind not comprehending what her eyes just witnessed. She blinks, and the thing turns its uncanny yellow eyes toward Kendra. Then it clicks.

_Leah just turned into a giant white wolf._

Kendra screams.

She scrambles against the wall for purchase and her toes curl with dread in Leah’s bedspread. She dances back and forth, kicking pillows out of her way, trying to find an exit.

The giant fucking thing is blocking the door, and Leah’s room is on the second story. She peaks over her shoulder and stares longingly out the window. There’s no way she can jump out without breaking a leg.

When she turns her head back, the wolf is right there _in her face_. She shouts, grabbing a pillow and smacking it in the muzzle. The pillow bursts into a plume of feathers. Kendra scrambles off the bed and dives into the closet, sliding the rickety door shut behind her.

The door immediately rips back open, and Leah is standing there, naked as the day she was born, in her usual brown skin. 

“Are you done?” she asks flatly.

Kendra lets out a shaky breath and flops onto her back. She pulls her inhaler from her back pocket and takes a puff before she speaks. “What the hell, Leah,” she says in a tiny whisper.

Leah’s hand reaches out and Kendra flinches, but she simply grabs a pink robe from the pile of clothes Kendra made a new home on. She slips it on and knots it in the front, taking a step back. 

“Do you get it now?” Leah asks.

Kendra doesn’t get up. “You just turned into a wolf.” 

“Yes,” Leah confirms. 

“A big fucking wolf.”

“Yes.”

“But... but _why_?” 

“You know the stories about Taha Aki.” Her mouth twists up like she bit a lemon. “Because of the vampires. The Cullens.” 

Kendra blinks. “No way… No way!” she gasps in disbelief.

When Ma found out the Cullens were back in town two years ago, she was so pissed. It was all she ranted about for weeks. Kendra just thought she was being her weird superstitious self.

“They’re really vampires? Like, really, really?” 

“Really, really,” Leah grumbles. “The boys have run into others before.” 

“There’s more?!” Kendra squeaks.

“Besides the Cullens? Yeah. And they kill humans. The Cullens are vegetarians or whatever.”

“What the hell does that mean for a _vampire_?” 

“They drink animal blood.”

Kendra slowly sits up, disgusted at the images in her head. “Am I gonna turn into a wolf, too?” she asks shakily. “I have asthma. I can’t use an inhaler with claws.”

Leah barks once with laughter. “I don’t think you have the bloodlines for it. And there’s never been a female wolf before me, anyway.”

“You’re the only girl?” 

“Yes, and it fucking sucks,” Leah mumbles. “I don’t know what that’s supposed to say about me.”

Kendra slumps forward, resting her head between her knees. “Fuck, Leah. I... I don’t know what to say. What to think.”

Leah sighs. “I know. I wanted to tell you sooner, but... we have orders.” 

Kendra looks up and asks, “From Sam?” 

“He’s the alpha. Like the leader of all of us,” Leah explains. “Anything he says we have to obey. If we don’t listen to a direct order, there’s… painful consequences.” 

That would explain the choking she saw. “That’s stupid. _Sam_ is the leader? The control freak? The narcissist?!” 

“For the past two years, yeah,” Leah mutters.

Kendra pauses. “Wait a minute. When did it happen to you?” she asks.

“The day I came home for spring break,” Leah whispers. 

“Shit. That was the last time you spoke to me,” Kendra hisses, thinking back to her unanswered texts. “Weren’t you supposed to go to Emily’s that day? I heard all about that bitch.” 

“Bailey told you,” Leah guesses. 

Kendra nods. “She’s pregnant. Moved in with Sam. They’re engaged. They’re both rotten to the core, Leah.” 

“Well, I did make it to Emily’s. And when I got there, she was packing her things to move in with him. She was wearing the ring he originally gave _me_ ,” she whispers. 

“No,” Kendra gasps. She remembers that ring– the ruby rock with the gold band. It was hideous, but _still_.

“It’s true.” 

“Leah, tell me you smacked her. Please, if you love me, you’ll tell me you smacked that bitch!” 

Leah smiles a tiny bit. “I did.” 

“Good! May that baby rip her vagina to shreds as karma!” 

“Kendra!” Leah gapes at her in shock.

“What? It’s not like it’ll happen,” Kendra waves her off. “That bitch can probably fit entire planets in there, it’s so fucking loose.”

Leah sighs. “God, I missed you.” 

Kendra bows. “I’m here all week. Try the veal,” she says with a wink. 

Leah’s smile dims. “I got so mad, Kendra. I wanted to strangle her. I stormed out, but the anger got worse and it wouldn’t go away. Then this started appearing on my arm. I didn’t go to some tattoo shop.” She gestured at her shoulder. “I tried to call my dad, to tell him what was happening because he always believed in this nonsense, but I just... exploded into that wolf you saw. On the side of the fucking road.” 

Kendra gapes at her. “This all happened on the same day?” she whispers.

Leah nods. “Then Seth, _baby Seth_ , turns into one, too. When I’m a wolf I can hear and see everyone’s thoughts, like a telepathic connection. So I can hear Seth in my head, you know? _Screaming_ his head off. And I can see what he sees.” She takes in a shaky breath. “There’s Dad, laying on the floor pale as all hell. Mom’s trying to revive him. And the fucking house phone is still clutched in his hand. Do you know what that means?” 

“Leah...” 

“I killed him. Me. He’s dead because of _me_ ,” Leah hisses. 

“That... that can’t be true,” Kendra says. “Harry’s always had a shit heart.” 

“It was me. I know it was me. There’s never been a female wolf before. It shocked the hell out of him and he couldn’t take it. I should’ve never called,” Leah sobs. She dissolves into tears again.

Kendra grabs her shoulders again. “ _No_ ,” she insists. “Harry ate fish fry damn near everyday like it was no big deal. He’d skip doses of his heart pills and Auntie would scream at him for it all the time.” She shakes Leah until she meets her eyes. “I used to babysit Seth with Bailey sometimes, remember? I was here, Leah. I saw how he was. There’s no way you did anything to him that he didn’t already do to himself.”

Leah’s wet eyes dart between hers. “But-” She stiffens and hisses to herself. “Shit.” 

“What?” Kendra asks in alarm.

“It’s Paul. He’s here. He was phased when I... _fuck_. He saw you freaking out.” Leah bites her lip and glances out the window. “I thought I’d have more time before he got here.”

“So what? What does he care?” 

Leah ignores her question and asks instead, “Did Bailey tell you about imprinting?” 

“Yeah, it’s some soulmate bullshit.” 

“Well, turns out it’s not entirely bullshit-”

There’s stomping on the steps, and Leah’s bedroom door slams open. It leaves a dent in the wall, and Kendra stares in shock.

Paul is standing in the doorway, half naked, seething and trembling with rage as he focuses on Leah– a complete one-eighty from when she saw him last at the funeral.

“Clearwater,” Paul growls. The sound makes the hairs on the back of Kendra’s neck stand on end.

Leah unravels herself from Kendra’s arms and steps forward. “Lahote,” she sneers back. 

“What. Have. You. _Done_?!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you like this story, please leave a review!


	13. Buzz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick content warning: There's mild sexual content in this chapter!

Paul is in the kind of rage Kendra hasn’t seen in him since they were children, like he used to be when he lived with his good-for-nothing father. He looks tightly wound and intensely distressed, like he’s on the verge of exploding at any given time. His entire form vibrates.

Leah doesn’t falter under his anger. She pushes Kendra further behind her, but Kendra can’t help but notice the slight trembling in her limbs, too.

“She deserves to know, Lahote!” 

“You had _no_ right!” Paul roars. The reverberating volume of his voice makes Kendra jump.

“She’s my friend, too!” Leah screeches back, taking a threatening step forward. Kendra grabs the belt of her bathrobe and she stills. Leah takes calming breath and bites out slowly, “The gag order isn’t fair.”

Paul shakes his head with a growl. “You and Black, always finding loopholes.” 

“She’s trying to be forthcoming with the truth, unlike _some_ people I know,” Kendra cuts in, ignoring Leah’s staying hand when she steps beside her. 

Paul flinches, turning his head toward her. “That’s not-” His face goes slack when his eyes lock with hers.

Kendra sucks in a sharp breath as her heart starts beating a mile a minute. They haven’t seen each other in two years other than at the funeral, but it feels like an infinitely longer amount of time has passed since they’ve met. Invisible flames engulf her body, burning with an overwhelming joy at the very sight of Paul. She resists the urge to reach out to him.

_“When I look at him, I just... feel something like irrational happiness, but it’s not coming from me. It’s... it’s my soul that gets excited, like it knew him from a past life.”_

In an instant, Kendra knows exactly what Bailey was talking about; she definitely couldn’t peg her sister as crazy anymore. Everything she said was true. It’s unbelievable.

“Oh shit,” she mumbles as the thrumming grows worse under her skin. She _really_ wants to touch him. “Oh _shit_.”

She swears she can feel a tightening sensation in the pit of her soul, similar to the lacing of a corset being cinched, and she knows, without any doubt, the visceral threads of it are attaching her to Paul. 

Her childhood crush, her high school sweetheart, her worst heartbreak... was a werewolf _and_ her soulmate. She isn’t sure if she wants to laugh or cry. Why now? Why _him_?

Paul breaks the eye contact first and looks panicked, holding his head in his hands. “Goddammit. I knew it. I fucking knew it,” he growls to himself. “Shit. Shit! I fucked up. I wasn’t supposed to...”

Ice lances through Kendra’s heart as she processes his words. He knew. He _always knew_ , and he couldn’t be bothered to at least tell her about it. He didn’t try to reach out or tell her about _anything_ that was going on with him. What did she do to him that was so wrong that he couldn’t even do that?

All over again the wound she’d been painstakingly nursing for years rips back open, and it’s still just as raw as the day she first received it when she finally forced herself to come to terms with the fact that Paul wouldn’t make a place for her in his life anymore. 

Her heart constricts as if a fist is squeezing the life out of it, and she rubs her chest to soothe away the ache. It almost knocks the breath out of her. She has to swallow twice before she can speak, but the gravel lodged in her throat doesn’t go away.

“You... knew?” Kendra whispers shakily. She wants to scream, but instead she laughs at the cruelty of that revelation. “Wow. Just… _wow._ ”

Paul frantically shakes his head and drops his hands. “I have to go.”

Just the thought of him walking away from her, blindsiding her with rejection _again_ , frustrates her beyond words. Kendra was never able to fully let it go for years, and as a result she loses her composure over it every time.

“No you don’t, you asshole!” she says sharply.

Paul trembles for a fleeting moment and bolts from the room. Kendra is hot on his heels, taking the stairs two at a time. He’s too fast for her, having already made it to the backdoor by the time she’s halfway down the stairs.

“Stop running, Paul,” she shouts. 

To her shock, he does. He clutches at the doorway that leads to the Clearwater’s backyard like it’s a lifeline and doesn’t turn around. Kendra pants from exertion when she comes to a stop a few feet behind him and stares at the massive Hannya mask tattooed on his sinewy back, recalling all the sessions she sat in on until it was completed.

She stares at the angry, resentful looking thing, not dissimilar to how she feels at the moment, and forces herself to be as calm as possible.

“We need to talk,” Kendra begins slowly. 

Paul stiffens and bows his head. Eventually he nods, but still says nothing. So he’s back to being mute again.

Kendra holds back a sigh, trying to stifle her irritation with him. He always picks the worst times to shut down; it’s been one his most frustrating qualities since they were children. He had a tendency to hold in his emotions until he was near bursting, and then he’d release it all in a screaming fit of rage that was equally destructive and terrifying. 

Her earliest memory of Paul was hearing his screams in the hallways of the tribal school when she was in sixth grade. The first time she actually laid eyes on him was in her grandmother’s office, where Diana was showing him basic sign language. On the drive home she demanded to know why she was doing that with him.

_“I taught you that when you were a baby, remember?” Diana said. “You didn’t know how to speak yet, and it was easier for you to tell me what you wanted with your hands until you learned words.”_

_“But_ he’s _not a baby,” Kendra argued._

_Diana smiled at her in the rearview mirror. “You’re right. He’s not a baby. But sometimes, even when you’re not a baby anymore, finding the words to speak can still be very hard for some people. Do you understand?”_

_Kendra nodded slowly. “He talks… in a different way.”_

_“That’s right. And different isn’t bad, is it, honey?”_

She couldn’t force him to talk, no matter how badly she wants to scream at him to do so. “...Not right now,” she amends. Hell, she doesn’t think she could handle this conversation at the moment either. “But we _will_ , about all of this. Once and for all.” The frustration bleeds into her tone anyway. “Can you please just do that for me? Can you _try_?”

Paul spins around. He has the audacity to look at her like he’s the one in agony, and the sudden shift in his demeanor shocks the hell out of her. The whiplash of emotions from him was almost dizzying.

He reaches out, and his ginormous hand slots in the crook of her neck, tilting her head back. Kendra goes willingly, too dumbfounded to do anything else, and a thrumming starts under her skin again. 

It’s worse than any butterflies she’s ever felt under his gaze when she pined after him in junior high. Now his eyes are pinned to her lips with a razor focus... It would only take a slight tip of his head to close the distance between them, of that she is very hyper aware of.

His eyes flit to something behind her and back, and his thumb caresses her bottom lip. It’s a familiar gesture, and it sends an irrational thrill up her spine.

Kendra learned over time it was another one of his wordless signals. The one he only does when he wants a kiss, but he doesn’t want to do it in front of an audience. He’s entirely too private with his affection– not secretive, just unwilling to share his affection with anyone but the object of his focus.

And right now, he’s saying he wants to kiss _her_. 

Where was all of this coming from all of sudden?

A flicker of annoyance runs through his gaze when he glances behind her again. He presses against the flesh of her lip again, harder, and Kendra would be lying if she said she didn’t feel a stupid inkling of hope bubble up and nearly overshadow the years of hurt she was harboring. All over a kiss that never was.

Paul abruptly lets her go and backs out of the house. He pins her with a heavy gaze before he takes off in a dead sprint. She watches him disappear into the forest that makes up the Clearwater’s backyard, leaving nothing but confusion in his absence.

Her hand comes up to her lips, still tingling from his touch. She woodenly turns around and finds Leah leaning against the wall with a grimace.

“Lee, I’ve only been home for an _hour_ ,” Kendra says in a tiny voice. “This is… too much.”

Leah nods sympathetically. “Drink?” she offers, gesturing at a collection of decorative wine bottles on the coffee table.

Kendra glances at the clock on the wall, seeing that it’s barely past noon. She snags a bottle and absently skims over the label. “It’s five o’clock somewhere. Is your dad’s fishing boat still docked?”

“We’ll have to walk to the marina if you want to take the boat out. I never got my car fixed after I destroyed it because…” Leah’s lips twist downward. “Because the funeral cost too much.”

“We can walk,” Kendra hurries to say. She doesn’t want to traverse into sad territory again.

Leah nods and heads back upstairs to change out of her bathrobe. She returns within minutes dressed in her loungewear from earlier, handing Kendra her coat and purse. She’s dressed completely at odds with the weather, but seems perfectly comfortable as they walk in the chilly forest. A comfortable silence falls between them.

Kendra uncorks the bottle with her teeth and tosses the cork into the bushes. They take turns taking sips, passing the bottle between each other every couple of minutes. The main roads are fairly empty by the time they reach town, and no one gives them a second glance despite the very obvious bottle in their hands.

The docks are slowly becoming visible in the horizon when Leah unexpectedly stops walking and takes the bottle from Kendra’s hand, glaring at it like it’s causing her some great offense.

“I’m not buzzed anymore,” Leah says out of the blue.

Kendra blinks slowly. “It’s like seven percent alcohol. What did you expect?”

“But aren’t _you_ buzzed?”

Kendra pauses, pursing her lips. “Sort of? I’m definitely warmer,” she admits. “Maybe you have a higher tolerance than me?”

Leah scoffs, “That’s impossible. You could outdrink me any day.” She throws her head back with a frustrated groan. “Is this another stupid wolf thing?”

“You already run hot. Maybe it’s your metabolism,” Kendra suggests.

“This is so unfair!” Leah complains to the sky.

“Maybe this means you could also eat a bunch of cheeseburgers everyday and never worry about gaining any weight?”

Leah sighs again and keeps walking, thrusting the bottle back into Kendra’s hands. “I guess,” she grumbles.

They continue their journey to the marina and walk among the planks of the dock until they find Harry’s boat, _Santana_ , tied off to a hitch. It’s a modest, no frills fishing boat co-owned by Billy Black and Charlie Swan. 

Leah expertly unties the boat while Kendra checks the cooler surreptitiously stowed under a pile of blankets. Kendra shakes her head at the collection of half frozen beer bottles and pulls one out with a smirk aimed toward Leah.

“That old man used to take this thing out as an excuse to drink without Mom seeing,” Leah says with a fond smile.

“Remember when he would occasionally bring _my_ dad along?”

Kendra could vividly recall the times Harry would stumble through the front door of her childhood home, half carrying her inebriated father with his own bleary grin on his face. She thought it was funny every time, but her grandmother would always scream at them to stop behaving like little boys. It never got through to them.

“Only when Dad wanted to have a _really_ wild time,” Leah laughs. She still giggles to herself as she starts the engine and steers the boat further out into the ocean.

Kendra wraps one of the blankets around her shoulder as the cold sea air whips her face. It’s freezing on the boat, but Kendra laughs at Leah’s bright eyes and careless driving. 

Leah eventually lets the boat sit idly in the middle of the water, accepting a beer with a nod of thanks. She huddles close to Kendra, who latches onto her in favor of her warmth. Just one of the many perks of having a werewolf friend that doubles as a personal heater. 

“You know what this reminds me of?” Kendra muses. 

“When you got locked out of your dorm and we drank a bottle of Jack to pass the time until your RA finally decided to show up with the master key?” Leah guesses. 

“Yeah,” Kendra laughs. “He sure took his sweet time.”

They both giggle at the memory of the poor RA who had to rescue the drunk pair from sleeping outside at four in the morning. They reminisce about their short time together in the desert, laughing to the point of tears over the shenanigans they managed to get up to without much effort.

“I miss college,” Leah mumbles, resting her head on Kendra’s shoulder. “I miss my old life, when things were normal, and everything was just fine.”

Kendra hums, taking another swig of her beer. “Do you still miss Sam?”

“As stupid as this is going to sound… yes.” Leah scowls to herself. “But the universe wanted him to have Emily, so…”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Kendra hedges.

Leah gives her a flat look. “How?”

“Okay, Emily got the house, the man, the baby…” Kendra trails off, realizing how not great that list sounds. “But _you_ got-”

“Depression,” Leah cuts in.

Kendra sits up and scoffs. “I think you dodged a bullet, Lee. Sam proposed to you in high school. It’s the twenty-first century– who does that anymore?” She pretends to gag. “He wanted to stay on the rez, but _you_ wanted a job in Manhattan, remember? New York is on the other side of the world. That never fit into his narrative.”

“Yeah, because I don’t know how to settle down.” Leah grumbles.

Kendra shakes her head. “You don’t settle _for less_ ,” she emphasizes. “You wanted to do big things. He would’ve made you so small, Leah.”

Leah snatches her beer and drains it. “But what good am _I_ getting out of this?”

“Besides freedom from being a 1950s housewife?” Kendra asks incredulously. “You have superpowers. Your metabolism is to die for and your body is snatched. The weather doesn’t bother you so you probably never get sick. You get to run around with a bunch of half-naked men all the time. Hello?”

“They’re _hardly_ men. Most of them are just overgrown children.”

“And you don’t have to worry about child support or alimony when it would’ve inevitably turned to shit between you and Sam, so that’s a win in my book,” Kendra adds.

Leah sighs. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted to get married and have kids with someone I loved until...” she trails off, turning her gaze to the empty bottle in her hand.

“But you can still have those things,” Kendra says quietly. “It just won’t be with Sam.”

“Did you want those things with Paul?” Leah retorts.

Kendra snorts. “Are you looking at me right now?” She gestures at the empty bottles beside her. “I’ve been a walking disaster since high school. I would be a terrible mother, and marriage was never in the cards for me.” 

“But did you want it with him?” Leah presses.

Kendra stares out into the water, internally cursing her friend for ignoring her evasiveness. “I never put a lot of thought into what a future would look like with him. The bells and whistles were never important to me. I just wanted _him_. Nothing elaborate or perfect… Just us.” She smiles bitterly, lowering her gaze to her lap and whispers, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

She can’t talk about it further because if she did… if she told Leah that she was still not over him after two years, or if she lets herself think about things that _could’ve_ been only to be crushed again, she would fall apart. And there would be no piecing her back together after that.

Leah stares at her in silent contemplation for a few minutes before she finally asks, “What do you _want_ to do, then?”

“I wanna go out and just forget what’s going on for a while. Werewolves can go to bars, right?”

* * *

A man who only needed barely a minute of small talk from Kendra crushes her against the sticky door of a bathroom stall. She struggles with the lock as he lathers her neck with wet kisses and tugs at the hem of her skirt.

His wandering fingers trace the frilly lace of her thong, accidentally brushing against a scar on her inner thigh. Kendra smacks his hand away.

Feeling someone other than Paul touching it felt wrong– it was _his_ scar after all.

Paul used to leave marks on her in intimate places where no one else could admire them but him. He bit her thigh one night, and it felt good, so deliciously good that she screamed and passed out from the intense ecstasy of it. 

Now, the thought of it is just... irritating.

This guy is supposed to be clearing out her thoughts right now, and yet her mind is still running circles around Paul. The whole point of going out to Port Angeles tonight was to stop _thinking_ and deal with her feelings later. 

Kendra swiftly unbuttons his jeans and reaches a hand into his boxers. “Condom?” she breathes.

He pats his jacket pockets and he pulls out a foil packet, and Kendra watches impatiently as he fumbles to wrap himself in latex. Sliding her thong aside, he lifts her leg with a hand under her knee and pushes into her with an aggression that makes Kendra bite her lip in anticipation. 

But it’s a snooze fest.

He’s slow, and _gentle_ , and it’s everything Kendra doesn’t want. 

Kendra lets him go at it for a minute until she rolls her eyes at his pitiful performance and decides to take the reins. She fists her hands in his jacket for leverage and grinds with enough friction to make the poor man stutter. 

“Come _on_. _Fuck_ me,” she goads him.

He takes the hint and hitches her leg higher, picking up the pace. Finally, _finally_ he’s doing enough decent work that Kendra has to keep a lid on the noises that threaten to escape her throat.

Sweet nothings are murmured in her ear, but she doesn’t pay much attention to his words. Her brain switches offline for thirteen blissful minutes, and she puts all her concentration in the slow buildup of pressure in her gut, winding taut as a bowstring.

Her orgasm washes over her with an involuntary moan and the stranger is not far behind her, finishing with a grunt in her ear.

She briefly tilts her head back to rest against the door and sighs to reset herself. Her foot slowly slides back to the floor, and the heel of her boot hits the tile with a dull _clack_.

“Thanks,” Kendra says as she fixes her skirt. She leaves him as he cleans up in the stall to reapply her lip gloss in the mirror. 

The man walks out fiddling with his zipper and watches her in the reflection with a grin.

“So, how can I reach you if I want a second round?” she asks tartly.

She takes down his number on a crumbled receipt, grinning after him as he exits the bathroom. After waiting another minute, she returns to the main room and raises a brow at what she sees.

Leah is still nursing that same drink Kendra left her with, only now there’s some guy crowding her with hungry eyes. Disinterest stiffens Leah’s posture. 

“Not interested,” she quips. The guy straightens with a pout and grumbles as he walks away.

Kendra hurries to the bar with a smirk. “See? I told you you’re still hot shit,” she says.

Hours earlier, before they made any solid plans to go out, Leah had a moment of self-doubt as she fished through her closet for something to wear. A lot of her confidence left her along with the locks of hair that she was forced to chop off. She initially complained about not looking feminine enough anymore, but Kendra quickly stopped that train of thought.

“ _You are hot, Leah Clearwater. This haircut shows off your neck and facial structure, which is honestly so perfect I want to punch you,” Kendra told her. “All you need is a little shimmer on the lids and a nice pair of earrings.”_

Leah was a sight for sore eyes in her black dress made of a thin, satiny material that left little to the imagination. She was wearing a contrastingly bright pair of earrings, handmade by Kendra during the hours they still had to kill until Bailey got off work. Even without the accessories the girl could literally put on a trash bag and _still_ look amazing.

Leah rolls her eyes. “That doesn’t count. He kept calling me exotic. He was a creep.”

“Bailey thinks you’re hot!”

“She doesn’t count, either,” Leah smirks. “She already had a crush on me for years.”

Her sister’s blush put all tomatoes to shame when she laid eyes on Leah all dolled up. The poor girl could never manage to string together proper sentences in front of Leah since she first began babysitting Seth, and to this day she was still a stammering mess under the eyes of her unrequited crush.

Kendra wags her finger in disagreement. “She’s still attracted to you, which proves you are still very much attractive. That one counts!” she insists.

She flags down the bartender for a drink while Leah tries to get rid of the blush and tentative smile on her face. When Kendra faces her again, Leah has smothered the evidence of her inability to accept compliments and is watching her with curious eyes instead.

“So? How was it back there with John Doe?” 

Kendra shrugs, showing off the number she acquired on the receipt. “It was a satisfactory graduation present.” 

“This really doesn’t help Emily’s case with the love at first sight and destiny crap,” Leah mutters.

Kendra picks up her shot glass. “Fuck a destiny.”

Leah is quick to clink her glass against Kendra’s. “Cheers!”

After a few more rounds, Kendra is uncomfortably full with liquor again and her brain is reduced to a sufficient amount of mush that doesn’t allow her to concentrate on anything other than staying upright and keeping her eyes open. She’s sure she looks much worse than Leah, who only has a slight flush on the apples of her cheeks and a goofy smile on her face.

They eventually make their way back to the tiny booth in the back corner where Bailey is giggling at a heavily tattooed brunette who’s leaving cherry red lip stains on her cheeks and lips. The brunette had Bailey wrapped around her finger the moment they stepped into the little dive bar, and they’d been exchanging playful kisses, drinks and banter with each other the entire night.

Kendra hooks an arm around Leah’s shoulder. “So a werewolf walks into a bar...” she begins loudly.

“Kendra!” Leah hisses. 

Her eyes frantically dart to Bailey, and it makes Kendra roll her eyes. Apparently Jacob made her promise not to blab to Bailey about his wolf status. He “wants to do it on his own time,” but Kendra thinks it’s a ridiculous request that she’s hard pressed to abide by.

“She’s too busy with her new girlfriend,” Kendra laughs. She turns and yells over the blaring music, “Bailey!”

Bailey turns her head away from the woman trying to swallow her tongue whole. The woman turns her attention to Bailey’s neck instead, brushing her fingers against the bare skin of Bailey’s exposed midriff. She initially complained about how “overdressed” Kendra and Leah were for a grimy dive bar, and but she was certainly enjoying all the benefits of Kendra’s borrowed top for this brunette’s easy access.

“Huh?” Bailey asks, blinking like she’s coming out of a trance. 

Kendra snickers and elbows Leah. “See?” She turns back to her sister. “It’s last call. Want anything?”

Bailey shakes her head, and the brunette looks up and gasps when she sees Kendra. “Twins?” 

“Kenny only likes boys,” Bailey explains, sticking out her tongue at Kendra. 

“Yeah, and I wouldn’t do a threesome with my sister even if you paid me,” Kendra adds. “Let’s go home.”

The brunette scribbles her number on Bailey’s arm with a lipstick wand before they drag her from the table. Bailey whines the entire time and stumbles twice on their way to the exit.

“I wanna stay,” she complains as Leah and Kendra manhandle her out the door. The cool air knocks some coherence back into Kendra.

“You have work tomorrow,” Kendra reminds her. 

Bailey breaks away from them and throws her arms into the air, screaming, “I have work tomorrow!” Her voice echoes in the nearly empty parking lot.

“Jesus,” Leah mutters. “You two might look similar but you’re _nothing_ alike-” 

Leah cuts off with an alarming snarl in her throat that makes Kendra shiver. Her head snaps to something further down the parking lot. Kendra squints, but she can’t make out anything Leah is glaring at in the darkness. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Go back inside,” Leah says slowly, throwing her arm out to push her back. Kendra stumbles into Bailey, who squawks in indignation.

“No. Stay a while,” an alluring voice says. A short, pale boy emerges from the darkness, dressed in dirty, ripped clothes. He might be the most handsome boy she’s ever seen, though he looks like he could use a few hours of sleep. His eyes are pitch black, darker than her own eyes.

“Who’s that?” Bailey mumbles beside her. 

“I’m looking for dinner,” he purrs. 

Leah smirks and cracks her neck. “You picked the wrong one, buddy,” she hisses. 

Everything happens in seconds. A huge, scorching arm wraps around Kendra’s waist and yanks her back against an equally hot chest. She yells in confusion as her feet remain hovering above the ground because of the stranger’s height, and the force of the vibrations coursing through the arm around her is so harsh it shakes her along with it. Her sister giggles like a drunken idiot, and she realizes the other arm is holding onto Bailey, too.

It makes Kendra see red, and the haze from all the alcohol she consumed almost completely fizzles from her mind. “Who the fuck are you! Let go of my sister!” she screams. 

Bailey makes a sound of amusement. “Jacob is here!” she trills. 

Kendra glances at the shaking arm and back up to the face that goes with it. “ _You’re_ Jacob?”

Before she can say anything further, a shiver passes through her and she’s briefly consumed by a gut feeling that Paul is most certainly near the area. 

_I’m definitely still drunk_ , she thinks, whipping her eyes around. _I have to be. There’s no way._

The giant ignores her question and remains facing forward, and the same weird sound Leah made is coming from his throat. Kendra turns her eyes back to the scene in front of them.

The pale boy disappears, and the next thing Kendra registers is Leah twisting her body and whipping her leg out to deliver a vicious looking kick. She can’t see what Leah hits, but it sounds like she slammed a hammer against a stone. The sickening crunch that follows makes Kendra cringe.

If she blinked, she would’ve missed all of it.

In the distance there’s a loud boom like a thunderclap and the sound of shattering glass, which makes Bailey shriek in surprise. Red lights flash as a car alarm goes off. Kendra hears more growling in the darkness, like they’re on the set of Jurassic Park, and the parking lot abruptly goes quiet. 

Leah crouches and grabs her leg with a groan. “Fuck, that hurt more than I thought it would,” she mumbles.

The giant man holding onto Kendra laughs. “Ya think?”

“Are you Jacob or not?!” Kendra demands, annoyed.

The guy shakes his head. “No, I’m-” 

“Quilliam!” Bailey sings. She squirms until she can wrap both arms around his neck and tuts. “You’re shaking! Are you cold? You wouldn’t be cold if you wore a jacket.”

As she talks Bailey practically melts against him and looks like she just dozes off in the crook of his shoulder as soon as she stops speaking. She was definitely more intoxicated than she appeared when she was sitting at that table.

“How many drinks did you have?” Kendra mumbles under her breath.

The big guy lets Kendra down and he adjusts his grip on Bailey, holding her against his hip like she’s a child. With one freaking arm. A _scorching_ arm. Now that she’s free, Kendra can easily see the wolf crest tattooed on his shoulder. She narrows her eyes.

He uses his free hand to absently pat Bailey’s head. “You need one more than me.” He turns to Leah. “You okay?”

Leah smacks her leg with a growl, and there’s another nasty crunch. That awful noise came from _her_?

She stands and takes a few hops, like she’s testing it. “Yeah,” she grunts.

“Is anybody gonna explain what the hell is going on?” Kendra yells. Bailey wakes with a start in the giant’s grip. “And who _are_ you?”

“Quincy,” Bailey slurs. He laughs at that.

Leah yanks off her leather jacket and roughly drapes it over Bailey’s shoulders. The blush that consumes her sister’s cheeks is hilarious. “That’s Quil. He’s with me,” Leah says as she eyes Kendra meaningfully.

When Leah starts toeing her shoes off, Kendra gets nervous. “You’re not doing what I think you’re doing, are you?” she whispers. If Leah wolfs out on her again, she might freak out.

Leah turns, and her eyes are flickering yellow. “I’ll explain later,” she says. Her eerie eyes turn to Quil. “Get them home. I’m gonna go help.” 

“Help with what?” Kendra squeaks. 

“Why do you get to have all the fun?” Quil complains. 

Leah lobs her pointy shoes at him and jogs backwards on bare feet. “I have a lighter, and I run faster!” she yells back. Quil pouts at her retreating form.

Kendra whirls on him when Leah is no longer visible to her eye. “You sure showed up in the nick of time. Did you follow us here?” she demands. 

Quil looks off to the side and screws his mouth into a frown. “Who? Me?” he asks innocently. “I was just jogging and happened to be nearby!” Ridiculous.

“What the fuck are you doing jogging all the way out in Port Ange at two in the morning?”

Bailey gasps and straightens up. “Kendra! You can’t just ask people why they’re jogging!” She presses a hand to Quil’s cheek. “Lillian, I’m so sorry about her.”

“I already know about you, _kwoli_ ,” Kendra hisses under her breath. Quil’s brows raise in surprise before a shit eating grin slowly spreads across his face. “She can’t hold her liquor very well,” Kendra continues in a normal voice. 

“She _is_ underage,” he replies.

Bailey scoffs. “Excuse you?” She fishes out her fake ID from her pocket. “According to this very legal document I am twenty-three years old, thank you very much!” She hiccups right after.

Kendra rolls her eyes and turns to Quil. “Can you drive? Leah was our DD since you all apparently have some high tolerance to alcohol.” 

“Yeah, of course. I’m not about to get on Leah’s bad side,” Quil says.

“I’m _not_ drunk. I can drive,” Bailey insists. 

Quil snorts and puts her on her feet. “Oh yeah? Try to walk in a straight line.” He laughs when she stumbles three steps in. “Alright, upsy daisy,” he murmurs, tossing her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. 

As he carries Bailey to the car she squeals in delight and playfully pounds a fist against his broad back. Kendra follows behind them, unlocking the car and sliding into the passenger seat. She watches through the rearview mirror as Quil attempts to strap her sister in with the seatbelt. Bailey is being as unhelpful as possible, relaxing until she’s a limp noodle with floppy limbs.

“Quil?” Bailey mumbles.

“Yeah?” 

“Leah gave me her jacket.” She pauses to smirk. “I think this means we’re married now.” 

He chuckles. “Lucky you.” 

“Hey, Quil, where’s Jacob? He was here. I know it,” she whispers, tapping her index finger against her temple. “I have spidey senses.” 

Quil glances out the window across from him as he finally manages to buckle her in the seat and pointedly moves his gaze back to his hands. “He’s around,” is all he says. 

“Jacob’s nice. You’re a nice boy, too.” She squishes his nose. “The sweetest of sweeties. Like a big teddy bear.”

Quil preens. “Am I?” 

Bailey nods, and her eyes fly open right after. “Is this… Are we having a _moment_?” She gasps. “Are we supposed to make out right now? That’s what they do in the movies!”

Quil sputters when she grabs his face and tries to pull back as she tugs him closer. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” he chants, his voice getting higher and his face getting redder with each repetition. He turns his face away when Bailey actually leans in to go for it. She plants a raspberry on his cheek instead and bursts out laughing.

“You should’ve seen your face,” Bailey crows.

“You, Miss Thing, are very drunk,” Quil says matter-of-factly.

“No, _you’re_ drunk!”

He’s still hysterically laughing when he closes the door and makes his way to the driver’s seat. Kendra silently hands him the keys, and after readjusting some of the mirrors Quil pulls out of the parking lot. A few minutes into the drive, Bailey slumps over in the backseat, out cold for the rest of the night. Quil glances in the rearview mirror and snickers to himself.

Kendra leans her head against the window and studies him. “Do you like my sister?” 

Quil nods eagerly. “Yeah, she’s cool.” 

“No, I mean, do you _like_ her?” 

Quil makes a quiet ‘aaah’ sound. “She’s a stunner, don’t get me wrong,” he chuckles, “but it’s not like that. We’re just playing around. She’s fun to pick on.” He pauses and quietly adds, “Besides, I think somebody else likes her even more.”

“Jacob Black,” Kendra guesses. 

Quil nods again. “But I don’t think he realizes yet. He says he thinks of her like a sister, but there was this other girl, Bella, who he used to say the same thing about. The way he _looks_ at her…” He shrugs. “I’m just saying, he never did anything like that with Bella.”

“Because they’re soulmates?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. She doesn’t give him any special treatment just because they’re soulmates or because of our secret,” Quil murmurs. “She just cares about being a good friend to us, and, uh… I think that speaks to him more than he thinks.” He shrugs. “But that’s just my two cents.”

Kendra hums to herself and turns her attention to the scenery beyond the window. Something in her brain is still screaming at her that Paul is still out there. His invisible presence is a constant buzz that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up for the entire drive, even as they pull into the driveway of her childhood home.

While Quil makes himself busy pulling Bailey out of the car, Kendra shuts her door and stares out into the forest. She feels this compulsion to step forward and investigate whatever the hell she can sense hiding back there until Quil asks, “Where do you want her?”

Kendra narrows her eyes at the trees and turns away with a huff. She directs Quil inside and has him set Bailey down on her bed. “I got her from here,” Kendra murmurs. “Do you wanna call someone to pick you up?” 

“Nah, I can run. Wolf, remember?” 

“Right.”

Kendra doesn’t stick around to watch him inevitably disappear in the woods. She peels Bailey out of her clothes and struggles with her limp form to get her arms and head through an oversized t-shirt. She leaves a cup of water on Bailey’s nightstand and pushes the trash bin near her head in case her sleep takes a turn for the worst. 

With a sigh she heads into the shower to wash off the grime from the bar. Kendra towels off and slips into her own pajamas. She paces in her room, hoping that would tire her out, but sleep still evades her because of the nag in the back of her mind that keeps insisting Paul is somewhere nearby.

Irritated, she swipes a pack of cigarettes from her desk and wraps herself in a fuzzy cardigan. She pulls the rickety lever hanging from the ceiling in the hallway, releasing the ladder that leads to the attic and climbs up. She makes her way across the tiny room, avoiding dusty boxes and trinkets, and gathers up a folded blanket resting on a box near the sole window.

The window takes a few tries before it swings open, and Kendra gingerly steps onto the roof one foot at a time. She flattens out the blanket before her feet and lays on it, lighting a cigarette and bringing it to her lips. 

The incessant nag only gets worse, and she’s contemplating shouting into the night until she stops short at the glowing yellow eyes that emerge from the tree line. She almost drops her cigarette in shock at the silver wolf that appears and walks through Bailey’s tiny garden. She sits up in alarm when the wolf disappears from her peripheral as it reaches the patio.

A brown, human hand grasps the edge of the roof, followed by another, and Kendra finds herself staring into the solemn gaze of Paul Lahote.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kwoli is the Quileute word for wolf. Please leave me a review if you like what you see so far! They let me know how I am doing with this story. Thanks for reading!!


	14. Veil

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna thank everyone SO much for the amazing comments I received on the last chapter! It really means a lot to me and I died of happiness reading them!! I hope you all enjoy this chapter as well, and please let me know what you think! This round we get Paul's perspective of the imprint and everything in between.

Paul’s muscles ache as he finally releases the sledgehammer from his grip. Endorphins course through his veins from the grueling work he’d been up to for the past ten hours. He’s drenched in sweat and his entire frame quivers from exhaustion. But it feels _good_.

Working in construction isn’t necessarily challenging for him– what would take several humans hours to do, he can do in less time by himself thanks to his heightened abilities. It’s both a blessing and a curse; he’s a bundle of excessive energy and heightened instincts with nowhere to put it. Patrols are one thing, but there’s rarely any engaging activity in that. A vampire sighting is always rare and sporadic. For the past two years he’s only come across five vampires total. These days he’s just chasing his tail. And while no threats are a good thing, it’s also terribly boring.

The lack of mental stimulation can tank his mood and pull him into bad habits, worse than the ones he already has. Sex helps as another outlet for his energy, but he can only do so much of that before he feels the restlessness creeping in. It simply isn’t enough.

The routine that centers around a job keeps Paul’s head on his shoulders. Between his usual patrol schedule and Sam’s unprovoked punishments in the form of double shifts, Paul could only take part-time projects that pay under the table, and it’s the best scenario he could’ve hoped for.

His boss, Jason, pays him handsomely and doesn’t ask questions– he turns a blind eye to Paul’s extra abilities because all he cares about is the job getting done, and Paul does that very well. He works through odd hours of the night, when his co-workers are dog-tired and clumsy. It’s during those hours Paul can freely operate on the construction site with minimal use of the equipment, which allows him to get the job done much faster. Instead of using machinery, he could give up the pretense of being human and get away with carrying timber and steel with his bare hands. Doing that for ten hours straight is laborious even for a werewolf, and it’s everything he needs.

Paul snatches his skull cap from his head and shakes out the sweat from his hair. He guzzles an entire bottle of water and makes his way toward the on-site “office,” which is really just a tiny trailer at the far edge of the construction site. 

He passes the other workers who are gathered together on wooden crates, sharing beers and sandwiches on their break. They all look up as he nears and tip their hats at him. In the past they would try to offer him a beer or invite him out for drinks and darts after a shift, but they quickly caught on to the fact that Paul would decline each time. He doesn’t talk much to them while he works, and he has no desire to make friends with them either. He can’t relate to their lives, so he doesn’t bother beyond polite niceties toward them.

Jason, a man with salt and pepper hair and a burly frame, is sitting at his makeshift desk, scribbling notes on construction plans. He looks up at Paul’s knock and glances over him without surprise. “Done already?”

“Yup,” Paul responds, popping the ‘p’. 

Jason pulls open a drawer at his desk with a shake of his head. “Jesus, kid,” he mutters under his breath. He pulls out a small safe and begins counting cash. Paul peers over the desk as Jason counts. 

“Thirty-six,” Paul says without thinking.

Jason looks up from his counting. “What?”

Paul’s gaze skitters away. “The number of bundles… for the order, sir,” he mumbles.

Jason pauses, his eyes darting from his notes to Paul and back. “Oh,” he says lightly. He sits up straighter. “You good at math, kid?”

“It’s nothing,” Paul deflects.

“You’re good out there. You could make a career out of this, kid,” Jason says, eyes bright. “If you ever want an apprenticeship-”

“No,” Paul cuts him off. It was a pipe dream from his old life, and Paul didn’t have time for dreams. Not anymore.

Jason purses his lips, holding out a wad of cash. “Just… think on it.”

Paul tips his head in thanks and walks off, pocketing the cash. He starts his truck and drives off until he’s far enough from the site and his exhaustion wears away. He pulls the truck off the road and into the adjacent woods, parking it next to a spruce. He undresses and climbs the tree, folding the cash in his discarded clothes and tucking it into a crook of the branches.

Jumping from the tree, he lands on four paws and starts a breakneck pace as he begins his patrol shift early. He weaves through the trees and picks up the trail left behind by Sam. Mercifully, he’s alone in the pack mind. It’s typical for Sam to blow off his solo shift before his scheduled time is up, usually too impatient to get home and fuck Emily. 

God, he could be a real dick sometimes and completely irresponsible, but today Paul is grateful for that flaw because he can get a few minutes of quiet before Jared joins him. That is, until Leah bombards him with a chant of “don’t freak out, don’t freak out, don’t freak out” when her consciousness floods in. She wasn’t due for patrol for several hours from now.

Paul laughs, wondering what’s got her panties in a bunch this time. “ _Clearwater, what-_ ”

He watches through Leah’s eyes as she focuses on Kendra. 

_Kendra_.

He knew she was due to return today– flight 8593 from Santa Fe to Seattle scheduled to land at 7:24AM, but who was keeping track?

He tried not to think about it. He _tried_ , but the information was constantly cropping up in the back of his mind. She was coming home permanently– she was _here_ … but he had no right to get excited about that. Not anymore. Now he certainly couldn’t muster an excitement, not when Kendra was staring at him- _at Leah_ \- with a shell-shocked expression as she stood on pink bed sheets. He’s stunned to silence, too, until Kendra screams.

“ _What the fuck are you doing?!_ ” he roars.

Leah cringes. “ _I promised her answers._ ” It’s a weak response to him.

“ _Godammit, Clearwater! You fucking-_ ” Leah ignores him and moves closer to Kendra, and they can hear Kendra’s heartbeat pound faster as she screams again. “ _Stop. Stop! She has asthma, you bitch-_ ”

“ _I_ know _she does. Who do you think drove her to the ER when she had her first asthma attack?_ Me _,_ ” Leah snaps. He gets a flash of the two girls seated in a hospital room before Leah wipes the memory away. “ _I wouldn’t do this if I felt like she couldn’t take it. She’s fine._ ”

Kendra slams a pillow into Leah’s muzzle and dives into the closet. Leah lets out a short burst of laughter, and it makes Paul see red.

“ _Oh, fuck you._ Fuck you _. I’m gonna wring your fucking-_ ”

Leah drops out of the pack mind, and Paul continues to curse up a storm. _Why_ is she like this?!

He strays from his trail and runs in the direction of the Clearwater’s house instead. He has to stop her. He has to do _something_ because godammit he has his own promise to keep. As he’s running, Jared finally decides to show up for patrol.

“ _Dude, starting without me-_ woah _._ ” Jared gets pounded with Paul’s rage and winces under the consuming pressure of it. “ _Paul, man, you gotta calm down-_ ”

“Don’t _tell me to calm down,_ ” Paul snaps. “ _She wasn’t supposed to know!_ ”

“Who _are you talking about, man?_ ” Kendra’s scared face flashes through Paul’s mind. “ _Oh._ Oh _._ ”

He says something else, maybe some bullshit comfort, but Paul tunes him out, unable to find the words to speak civilly anymore. His mind fills with white noise as he puts all his focus into stopping Leah.

Paul skids to a stop in front of the house and catches the tail end of Kendra detailing how terrible Harry’s heart had been for years. He lifts his lip in a snarl when Leah finally catches a whiff of his scent. He smirks as he listens to Leah scramble, and he phases back to two feet and storms into the house. Snagging a pair of Seth’s shorts from the banister, he charges up the steps. 

The bedroom door flies open with a violent shove and Paul finds Leah in Kendra’s arms, staring at him with a solemn, accepting expression. It infuriates Paul. Leah untangles from Kendra and takes a step forward– big mistake. Paul can hear his wolf growl and thrash at the challenge in the she-wolf’s posture and tone as she growls his name. The _nerve_ of this girl. How dare she? _How fucking dare she?!_

“What. Have. You. Done?” he spits.

Leah pushes Kendra behind her, and Paul almost scoffs at the action. She thought Kendra needed protection from _him_? The very idea is laughable. Offensive, even. It makes him sick. He would _never_ lay a hand on Kendra. _Never._

“She deserves to know, Lahote!” Leah retorts.

“You had _no_ right!” 

“She’s my friend, too!” 

Her scream makes Paul reflexively curl his lip back to bare his teeth. If she takes one more step, he’s not sure he’ll be able to stop himself from tearing into her. Luckily for her, Leah seems to realize this and takes a calming breath.

“The gag order isn’t fair,” she says slowly.

Paul tries to shake off the haze of anger clouding his mind, sensing the tension in the air lowering. He grits out, “You and Black, always finding loopholes.” Why did they choose _now_ of all times to disobey? Why did they have to involve _him_ in it?! 

“She’s trying to be forthcoming with the truth, unlike _some_ people I know.” Kendra’s snappy response makes him stiff. God, if only she knew. 

Paul looks up, offended. “That’s not-” 

He gets lost in her eyes. Those endless black eyes, sharp like hematite.

They flay him apart like a pariah, past his skin and bones, sinking their hooks into his soul. Finally, _finally_ the burden that’s been weighing on him, the phantom pains of a limb he’d been missing for years has gone away. It’s her. It’s _her_. 

_He finally found her again._

Euphoria rushes through him like an electrical current, spreading fire throughout his veins. All the loose stitches become taught again, reattaching connections that had grown stiff and withered. He feels like a reset button has been hit within him.

His soul vibrates with excitement, and his wolf is restless beneath his skin, whining and pushing at his psyche in complaint to get _closer_ , to just _touch her_ , to reassure his wolf that this is real. His wolf wants to get reacquainted with the girl- a _woman_ now, who it’s worshipped for years, even when it was still lying dormant within Paul. The connection is restored, and it’s wonderful, a relief– 

_“You can’t clip her wings before she’s had a chance to fly. I won’t let that happen to her. Do you understand?”_

Paul stops cold. 

The promise. The fucking _promise_.

He _can’t_ do this. This is exactly what Diana didn’t want. He broke his promise to her. The first and only thing she’d ever asked him to do, and he failed.

“Godammit. I knew it. I fucking knew it,” he reprimands himself, wondering how he could destroy everything he swore he wouldn’t do within seconds. “Shit. Shit! I fucked up. I wasn’t supposed to...” 

A strangled noise escapes Kendra’s lips, and Paul looks up in horror to see her clutch her chest and stare at him with a devastated expression. He almost falls over from it. 

“You... knew?” Her humorless laugh makes him want to curl up and die. “Wow. Just… _wow_.” 

Paul’s throat closes up. The despair in her expression and the souring of her scent fires too many overwhelming signals in his brain. He feels compelled to _do_ something about it– just fucking comfort her or _something_ , but he can’t. He won’t. He _promised_.

Still, he gets hit with a wave of vertigo. “I have to go,” he chokes out. His wolf howls in vehement disagreement.

White noise starts filling his ears again, and everything about his being feels like it’s spindling at the seams. Kendra says something to him that he can’t quite make out, but he knows they’re angry words by the expression on her face. He runs, because he can’t take it. He can’t stand how he put that hurt there.

The guilt is consuming, and the edges of his vision close in on him as he runs until he hears Kendra shout, loud and clear, “Stop running, Paul!”

Paul freezes. He takes a whiff of the fresh hair to clear his pitiful mind from the deadly cocktail of despair and guilt. He counts her labored breaths and clenches his jaw until his teeth begin to ache. 

“We need to talk.” Paul tenses. _No more talking_ , he wants to shout, but he can only manage a nod. His mouth doesn’t work anymore. “...Not right now, but we will, about all of this. Once and for all. Can you please just do that for me? Can you _try_?”

Her voice is so tiny, so tired, and she’s _begging_ him. How could he deny her, when Kendra has never asked much of him before?

He spins around, cursing his one promise to hell. He _aches_ to kiss those lips and tell her just how much he’s been killing himself over all this. How he hopes her love for him hasn’t dimmed. How he hopes the glimmer in her eye is exactly what he thinks it is as he tilts her head back. How he hopes, despite everything, she hasn’t completely given up on him yet. How he loves her just as strongly as he did the first time he told her… 

But Leah is there, and Paul can’t open himself up in front of her. He does the only thing he _can_ do. 

He caresses Kendra’s lip, a sticky satin from her lip gloss, with his thumb and watches how her eyes go wide and shiny. Her eyes dart between his, and he can hear her heart flutter. A rush of warmth flows through him, and his wolf purrs in contentment. _This_ is where he’s meant to be. Right here, all along, _kissing her_ and making up for lost time. He wants those pretty pink lips all to himself.

Paul glances at Leah again in irritation, but she meets his stare with an unreadable expression. He presses harder against Kendra’s lip, desperate for her to understand what he’s trying to tell her, what he _really_ wants to do with her right now. He waits until can see the understanding and the confusion shining in her eyes. He takes off after that, fearing he might not be able to resist any longer and kiss her for real.

Paul phases back and Jared is still faithfully running on patrol, receiving the gist of the past few minutes. Of the… the _imprint_. Jared tries to congratulate him, welcoming him to the true love at first sight club, but Paul is having none of it.

“ _Shut up, Jared_ ,” Paul growls.

Jared ignores his attitude, guessing it must be because his time was cut short with his imprint. “ _Dude, why don’t you stay with her?! I can cover. I_ totally _understand._ ” 

He doesn’t know the meat of the situation at all, but Paul still has to force himself not to give into that temptation. He tunes out instead, ignoring all attempts from Jared to spark conversation about his “plans to bite her.” His focus stays on the task in front of him as much as he’s able, putting in his six hours of patrol before he goes straight home, forgoing the retrieval of his truck and money for another time.

As he opens his front door Penny bounds up to him with a bark and a wag of her tail. She’s an intelligent doberman, and she becomes a wriggling mass of excitement when she smells Kendra on him. She whines as she frantically sniffs at and licks his fingers. 

“Do you smell mom?” he whispers, scratching her behind her floppy ears. He gives her a few minutes of love before he sends her outside to do her business while he waits on the porch.

Penny is really the only good thing he was able to carry over from his old life. She was just a tiny thing that could easily fit in his palm when he found her abandoned near a dumpster during his junior year. It was the sound of her pitiful little cries that drew him near, and he couldn’t imagine ever leaving her behind once he got a look at those big, trembling brown eyes. He brought the puppy to Kendra for help picking a name and getting supplies, and she immediately burst into laughter as she held the tiny thing in her arms while they browsed through a pet store.

_“Penny,” Kendra giggled._

_Paul glanced at her, raising a surprised brow. “Penny? Really?”_

_“Look at her,” Kendra insisted, lifting the pup to his face. “She’s got these big copper dots for eyebrows. Like a pair of pennies on her face. She’s a Penny for sure.”_

Paul agreed with her at the time, mostly because he couldn’t resist the tender smile on her face when she told him her reasoning behind Penny’s name. Even now, as Penny runs back up the porch steps and stares up at him expectantly, those two copper spots still sit above her eyes.

He turns to go back inside, and Penny barks at him. She turns her head toward the driveway and back, and Paul tuts at her. “We’re not seeing mom today, Penny.”

Penny stubbornly stays in place.

Paul groans. “Be a good girl, and come inside,” he pleads. As soon as Kendra comes into the picture all the training he did with Penny goes out the window. She’s a mama’s girl, through and through. “Don’t do this to me today, Penny.”

Penny’s tail drops, and she walks into his tiny home at a slow pace. He follows after her, feeling just as sorry as she looks, and shuts the door. He puts a cup of kibbles in a tin bowl for her and collapses into his bed pushed against the back wall of the cabin he calls home, and runs a hand through his hair. The imprint took more out of him than any amount of work he did today.

He cracks an eye open when Penny snuffles against his face, worming her way into the bed with him. Normally he wouldn’t allow it, but today he gathers her in his arms and holds her close to his chest.

“I know, baby girl.” He swallows harshly. “I miss mom, too.”

Baby girl was a nickname Kendra adopted, one that he quickly (and secretly) grew attached to. The nickname has countless memories attached to it, and the most recent one that comes to mind is as beautiful as it is painful. It was the last time he was with Kendra, a period in his life when he could remember truly being happy.

He was in his senior year, and it was Memorial Day weekend. He and Kendra made plans for her to stay with him for the long weekend, and they filled the time with nothing but sex, taking care of Penny, and more sex. It was a simpler time.

* * *

_Kendra was underneath him, face flushed and panting, her sweaty hair splayed out on his pillows. She weaved her fingers through his hair, scratching her nails against his scalp. She giggled as he peppered her face with kisses._

_“Paul, no more,” she breathed, turning her face away. “Seriously. You’ll kill me.”_

_Paul ignored her in favor of nibbling her collarbone. “One more,” he challenged. He just wanted to see her fall apart under his hands one more time. Just one more, and maybe he would be satisfied._

_“You’re trying to put a baby in me,” she accused him. “We can hardly take care of the one we have now.”_

_Paul snorted, glancing over at Penny sleeping in her plush bed. He didn’t want to have a baby, probably ever. What he wanted was to hear her scream, over and over again. “You’re making a mountain out of molehill. I use condoms, and you're on the pill,” he said cheekily. He licked a trail down her ribs and she pushed his head away._

_“You’re gonna kill me. I’m hungry.” She pauses at the glint in his eye. “For_ real _food. Breakfast first. Please? I’m starving.”_

_Paul groaned in response and kissed her forehead. “Fine.”_

_“Get me a blueberry muffin? And hurry,” Kendra whined._

_“Nah, I think you can wait.”_

_Paul crawled out of the bed with a wink and really took his sweet time getting dressed. Kendra pulled his sheets up to her chest and sat up with a huff. She looked beautiful running her hand through her damp curls before she tossed them over her shoulder. He pecked her on the lips just for looking pretty enough to eat and walked out the door. If he had known that would be their last kiss, he would’ve made sure it was better. Memorable. Their last kiss was such a joke._

_He only meant to be gone for thirty minutes tops, just to get breakfast, but his genetics quickly threw a wrench in that plan. One minute he was walking, and in the next his shoulder felt like it was on fire and he suddenly exploded from his skin. Then his hell began._

* * *

Paul squeezes his eyes shut, banishing the memory. He counts the seconds until he feels himself grow tired, and dreams of Kendra screaming his name in the forest. She holds a flashlight in one hand and has Penny on a leash in the other. She never finds him, no matter how loud he howls.

Penny’s barking wakes him from his nap, and he sits up in a rush, disoriented. He squints at his alarm clock. 9:32pm. He only managed to get three hours of sleep. Something slams against his window and Penny barks again. Paul turns to the window with a snarl, glaring at Jacob obnoxiously banging his hands against the glass while he stares at Penny with a stupid expression on his face.

“What do you want, Black?” Paul spits.

Jacob snaps out of his surprise and turns his eyes to him, holding his hands up in defense. “Dude, relax, would you?” he says. “Leah is going out to a bar with Bailey and Kendra. Thought you should know.” 

That peaks Paul’s interest. “Where?” 

“Castaways.” 

Paul pauses for a minute. Castaways is a bar in Port Angeles, and that’s about a two hours drive away around this time. He can’t help but think about the disappearances in Seattle he read about in newspapers. Seattle isn’t anywhere near Port Ange, but that doesn’t make him feel any better about the girls being out there. 

“Me and Quil were gonna go, ya know, patrol the area,” Jacob continues. “Leah can handle anything, but… I don’t know, man. She might need backup or something.” 

“Why is _Junior_ going?” 

Jacob rolls his eyes. “He’s the one who overheard them when he was running a circuit nearby, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.” 

Paul’s already decided, wiping the sleep from his eyes and shucking his sheets away. “I’m coming.” 

As he refreshes Penny’s water bowl before he leaves, he hears Jacob mutter, “I can't believe you really have a dog…” 

Paul rolls his eyes at that. He locks the door behind him and phases, keeping up a steady speed with Jacob and Quil as they run through the woods that border the highway to Port Angeles. Jacob and Quil keep up a steady stream of conversation as they monitor the area surrounding the bar, but there’s nothing of note that they come across during the three hours the girls spend inside. Except for the occasional drunk stumbling about, the area is quiet.

Jacob and Quil are shocked into silence when the trio finally stumbles out of the bar, mostly because of Leah’s new appearance. Leah has always been attractive even with her shorter haircut, that much Paul could admit with no problem, but she’s an unexpectedly beautiful sight in a dainty black dress and stilettos. 

Paul only has eyes for Kendra and her long legs in a pair of thigh-high boots. The same legs that used to wrap around _him_ when he– 

“ _Dude_ ,” Quil cries. He’s never heard Paul say anything like _that_ before, and even Jacob seems shocked. “ _Who_ are _you right now?_ ”

Paul doesn’t apologize. 

Bailey raises her arms and screams into the night, causing her already tiny shirt to ride up even higher. They catch a glimpse of a small Medusa head tattooed on her solar plexus, and Quil whistles in appreciation. Jacob and Paul growl at him for it. 

“ _Oh, come on. You guys were just making moon eyes at_ -” The sickeningly sweet smell of a vampire hits him like a ton of bricks, putting Jacob and Paul on high alert. “ _Shit!_ ” 

Quil picks up the trail and tracks the scent to the edge of the parking lot. He glances up, and a vampire is crouched on top of a street lamp. Leah notices, too, snapping her head towards it and snarling.

Paul is all business after that. “ _Ateara, get your ass over there and cover Leah’s six. He’s gonna go for the girls,_ ” he growls. Outrage at the thought makes him twitchy. “ _Black, go left and stay hidden. Don’t come out til my signal. Go now._ ” 

Quil runs a wide circle around the lot. At the same time, Leah warns Kendra under her breath and pushes her into Bailey.

“I’m looking for dinner,” the thing hisses. 

Quil sticks to the side of the building and chuffs to let Leah know he’s nearby. She acknowledges it with a crack of her neck and tenses. Quil phases, and his consciousness and perspective drops out of the pack mind. He jerks on his shorts and stays hidden around the corner. 

Paul mirrors the vampire’s movements as he moves further into the parking lot several feet behind it. Leah catches Paul’s eyes and smirks. 

“You picked the wrong one, buddy,” she hisses back.

The vampire lunges, and Leah punts it with a kick straight back to Paul. He hardly has time to see Quil grab up Kendra and Bailey before his attention zeroes in on the vampire as it slams into a sedan. Paul quickly pounces on it, locking his jaws around his torso and snarling when it thrashes between his teeth. 

“ _Now, Black!_ ” Jacob bursts from the trees and rips the head off before the thing could open its mouth to scream. The victory is short-lived when the vampire scent still reeks in the air, stronger still. 

Paul looks up at a hiss, making eye contact with another vampire standing on a high branch before it runs off. 

“ _There’s another one. Fuck!_ ” Paul drops the headless torso from his mouth. “ _Black, drag this somewhere and torch it. I’m going after the other one!_ ”

While Paul chases after the second vampire, a young looking boy now that he’s _really_ paying attention to it, Leah runs up to Jacob with a lighter in hand. They make quick work of setting the severed pieces on fire. Leah ducks into the underbrush to pull her dress off and phase.

“ _It’s trying to get to water to escape_ ,” Leah says, noticing how the vampire is fleeing in the direction of the shipping docks.

True to her word as the fastest runner in the pack, Leah speeds past both Jacob and Paul with ease. The vampire is just within biting distance when the thing abruptly turns around and slams its fist into Leah’s muzzle. Leah shrieks as she’s knocked from the docks and plunges into the water. 

“ _Leah!_ ” Jacob and Paul scream at the same time. The vampire jumps into the water, too, shockingly not paying Leah any mind as it takes off in the opposite direction.

Leah breaks the surface in her human skin with a gasp, smacking her arms against the water. “What the fuck was _that_?” she shouts in the air. Her nose is a mess of blood.

She swims closer to the docks and pulls herself up, phasing back to her wolf form as she comes all the way up. She shakes the excess water from her white fur and slams a paw against the ground in frustration.

“ _What are we supposed to do now?_ ” she grumbles.

“ _Report it to Sam?_ ” Jacob wonders.

“ _And what’s he gonna do? Tell us we’re fucking failures for not protecting the oh so precious imprints properly?_ ” Leah snaps. “ _Turn us all into mutes like Paul if we argue about it?_ ” She pauses. “ _Oh, fuck. Oops._ ”

Paul bristles, baring his teeth at Jacob. “ _You told her?_ ” Jacob guiltily thinks about the conversation he had with Embry and Quil, too. “ _You told_ them, _too? You idiot! I told you to keep your damn mouth shut!_ ”

“ _Embry already suspected, and Quil just happened to be there when we were talking! And Leah was yelling at me_ ,” Jacob says defensively. 

“ _You are such a baby_ ,” Leah hisses.

“ _Enough!”_ Paul snaps. The two wolves snap their eyes to him. “ _There’s nothing to do about it. Let’s just go home._ ”

Leah hesitates, and Paul feels the guilt radiating from her as he sees a memory of hers– an image of him standing in the road, leaning his hands on the hood of her old car with a solemn expression on his face. He remembers that morning well.

“ _Paul, I-_ ”

“ _I don’t want to hear it, Clearwater._ ”

Paul doubles back with Leah and Jacob flanking him, and they escort the mustang back to La Push. He can feel Kendra’s gaze through the window the entire time. Jacob goes back to his house to eat something before he has to start his patrol, coincidentally partnered with Leah for this shift, and Leah makes her plans unknown before she phases out.

Paul sits in the darkness under the trees, still phased, as he watches Quil wrangle Bailey out of the car. Kendra emerges from the car, somehow making exact eye contact with him. He swears she almost takes a step toward him, but Quil’s words distract her. She goes inside instead, and minutes later he watches Quil leave the house and run off, probably back to his own bed. 

Paul, though, can’t bring himself to leave. He listens to the sounds of water running through the pipes of the house and wishes he could go inside. His thoughts are interrupted when Leah appears behind him in her dirtied dress.

“Look, Paul… I’m sorry,” she says gruffly, rubbing her arms. “I should’ve listened to you when you warned me about Emily and Sam, but I just… I didn’t want to accept it. I’m… I’m sorry for calling you a liar.”

The day Leah phased Paul _tried_ to keep her from going to Emily’s house, knowing nothing good would come out of it. She went anyway, of course, and the rest is history.

Paul huffs and stares at her over his shoulder, but does nothing else. There’s nothing more to say at this point, and he doesn’t need an apology from her. He did his part months ago, and there was nothing else he could do about the situation if she didn’t want to listen to him. It’s water under the bridge now. What’s done is done. 

Leah seems to understand anyway and nods, turning her gaze to her feet. They turn their attention back to the house when Kendra appears at the attic window and climbs out of it, setting up a blanket on the roof. 

“Paul, you need to make up your mind about her. She’s _still_ not over you, even if she won’t say it,” Leah says quietly. “You might want to try using your words this time if you want to tell her how you feel.”

Leah leaves after that. He waits until she’s really gone before he approaches the house, watching Kendra sit up in alarm. He phases once he reaches the patio, pulling on his shorts. He hops and grabs a hold of the roof, slowly pulling himself up. He pauses as he glances over Kendra’s form. She looks pretty in her silky lilac pajamas and fluffy cardigan. He takes her lack of aggression as a positive sign and climbs all the way up, cautiously taking a seat beside her on the blanket.

Kendra keeps her eyes straight forward as she wordlessly hands him her cigarette. Neither of them talk for a few minutes as they pass the cigarette back and forth. The threads between them hum whenever their fingers brush. Kendra shudders when it happens for the eighth time, and she suddenly laughs. 

“I swear I’m fifteen all over again,” she says, ducking her head between her knees. “I’m that stupid girl who’s head over heels for that stupid, stupid boy who keeps breaking her heart.”

Paul purses his lips. He was selfish for a long time, inconsiderate of her feelings for him and never acting on his own in favor of sleeping with other girls just for the sake of it. He knew what he was doing, and thinking back on it he could never think of a reason _why_ he did it. It took him an insanely long time to come to terms with his feelings for her, and, miraculously, she waited for him. Until now.

Kendra sits up and points at him with her cigarette. She looks glorious above him, even in anger. “And there it is. The look that means a thousand words,” she whispers. Her eyes dart between his. Those black eyes pierce into his soul, and he can’t help but enjoy every second of it. “Stop it! You broke _my_ heart! _You_ left things like this! You can’t look at me with those eyes anymore. It’s not _fair_. What am I supposed to make of that after two years of _nothing_?”

She turns away from him and tosses the cigarette, covering her eyes with her hands. He immediately feels bereft. “Don’t answer that. I’m not ready to hear it, whatever it is.”

Paul moves her arms to get a look at her eyes again, and everything he’s been holding back tumbles forth in three little words. 

“I love you,” he confesses without thinking. “You _have_ to know that. You’ve always known that.”

Kendra’s lips part in surprise, plump and pink and glistening. He swears to himself: _One kiss. Just one. To get a taste, a reminder..._ He kisses her with everything he’s got, and every fiber of his being sings as her lips move against his. She wraps her arms around his neck to pull him impossibly closer and all of his promises fall to the wayside. His kisses become slick and desperate as he steals more, savoring the taste of honey and apricots on her lips. _God he missed her touch so much_. 

He grabs her waist, ready to pull her into his lap, when a loud _crack_ makes him freeze. His gaze immediately snaps to Leah standing in the pitch black of the forest with a broken branch beneath her foot and a reprimanding glare burning holes into him. 

Kendra pulls back from the kiss with a gasp, startled by the noise. She pushes against his chest until he’s flat on his back, keeping him at arm’s length. She readjusts her cardigan as she scrambles off his lap, and the fire in him ebbs to embers at her torn expression despite the seductive flush on her cheeks. 

“You’re so confusing,” she mumbles. Her next words completely douse the flames, and nearly break him. “This isn’t something we can kiss better, Paul. You… _hurt_ me. You ripped my heart out of my chest and fucking stomped on it! An ‘I love you’ isn’t going to make that go away. That’s not _enough_ for me anymore.” Her lip trembles and she turns her back to him. “If you have nothing else to say then go home, Paul.” 

No. _No._ Anything but that. He has to make this _right_. There isn’t anything more he can allow himself say, but he doesn’t want her to make him leave.

He presses his face into her back and grips her forearms, mumbling, “Kendra-” 

“Stop it. You turn my brain to mush when you do that,” she hisses, wrenching further away from him. She sniffles and glares at him from over her shoulder. “Just tell me… Why didn’t you say anything when you… you changed? Was it me? Did I do something? Did I make you unhappy?” 

“No. No, of course not. It’s not you,” Paul whispers. “It was never you.” 

Her eyes brighten and she waits for more, but he clams up. Her eyes dim as she curls in on herself. “A stupid part of me is happy that you’re here but I wish…” She clenches her fists at her sides. “If you can’t give me an explanation then we have nothing else to talk about. I’ve been awake almost twenty-four hours now. I’m tired. Please… Please just go.” 

He watches her for a few tense seconds, miserable, before he climbs to his feet and jumps from the roof. He lands on four paws on the patio and books it. 

Leah and Jacob are both already phased for their shift, and Leah is quick to reprimand him. “ _What happened to_ talking _to her, dumbass?! I said talk, not hypnotize!_ ” 

“ _Shut up, Leah_ ,” he growls. 

That wasn’t his intention. He just _missed_ her and what they used to be. Old habits die hard when it comes to the girl he loves… She was always irresistible to him and entirely too tempting to resist kissing, even now. Everything he couldn’t say to her was hiding in those kisses. 

It didn’t matter that Kendra was his soulmate just because they knew each other in some past life. He _made_ her his soulmate in this lifetime and that was all he knew or cared about. It was something that took _years_ to build, and they did that together. It was more precious than any stupid imprint could ever tell him.

He bit her, marking her as his for life before he knew what it meant, before he even _phased_. All he knew back then was that she was the one for him, the _only_ one, and his wolf surged to the surface before he was anywhere near ready for the first phase and made a claim. 

It was instinct for him to do it, but the unknowns of the nuances of imprinting and the bite made Diana fearful. She didn’t want anything like that for her granddaughter, to be tied down to a beast like him and stuck in the reservation forever. And therein lies the problem.

It should have been an easy choice to give up Kendra. To let her live her life without being burdened by his problems and the supernatural dangers that come with him. But with the bite and now the manifestation of the imprint, the layers of complication keep piling on. 

She would’ve been able to walk away from this if it weren’t for the imprint, if he didn’t make the fatal mistake of her looking her in the eye. Now he’s made everything _worse_ because the imprint allows Kendra to see the bond, too, and all it did was hurt her even more after the damage he already caused. She was bound to him, and now she knew it. There was no turning back from it anymore.

Diana told him one thing, _to stay away_ , and his wolf constantly howled another. Paul doesn’t know which voice to follow now. 

Leah and Jacob bring on an onslaught of pitying thoughts and questions that makes Paul want to lash out at them. He doesn’t want their pity. He doesn’t want to answer their questions. He wants to be left _alone_.

“ _Get out of here_ ,” Paul snarls. 

“ _But we have patrol-_ ” 

“ _I’LL DO_ _IT,_ ” he barks. Leah and Jacob jump from his volume and quickly phase out without further questions.

Paul starts his patrol, _again_ , when he picks up on Kendra crying in the distance. He howls into the night with despair along with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't already, I highly encourage you to check out my other story, "a dish best served cold"!!


	15. Pursuit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick content warning: There is (extremely brief) references to child abuse in this chapter.

Kendra doesn’t look up to watch Paul leave. She knows if she looks at him and sees the torture that is undoubtedly on his face, she’ll say something foolish to make that look go away.

Of all the things for him to do, why did he have to kiss her? Especially like _that_ – with so much desperation, doused with unspoken love… for _her_. It didn’t make any sense. Still, her lips tingle, even worse than when he simply brushed them with his thumb when it was still daylight. 

His hands were warm then, but his lips were an entirely different story. Searing, plush, addictive… she never wanted to stop kissing him. And those eyes… She didn’t want to admit how far she would’ve let things go if it weren’t for the interruption that startled her enough to pull away from those dangerous lips of his.

Kendra holds her head in her hands. 

“I’m so stupid,” she whispers. Letting him go felt like a strain before, but now it felt entirely impossible.

Why couldn’t things just be like they were two years ago? Why did he have to ruin something so pure in the first place? 

The thought alone gets her choked up, and the tears that fall from her eyes and the involuntary sobs that escape her throat make her angry.

She _hates_ him… She desperately wants to hate him…

But she cared for him too much, still. He always had this absurd effect over her that would turn her into a blubbering mess at a moment’s notice. She never cried over boys, or about anything really. Bailey was the crybaby of the family, not her!

Yet Kendra always cries when it comes to _him_.

The howling in the distance makes her jump, startling her into silence. Something instinctually tells her it’s Paul. It’s a wretched, awful sound, and she covers her ears to block out the noise.

Minutes pass and the howls only grow worse. Kendra squeezes her eyes shut for a second, wishing she could just disappear, but alas. When she opens her eyes she’s still on the roof, and the howling still whips in the air around her. She scrambles off the blanket and climbs back through the window, slamming it closed behind her. The noise is muffled, but only slightly. It grates on her nerves.

Kendra tiptoes down the attic ladder and back into her room. She yanks open the drawer of her work bench, pulling out her iPod and shoving the earbuds in her ears to drown out the noise with some classic Gwen Stefani. 

She stands in the middle of her room, bobbing her head to Rich Girl until she gets a look at her alarm clock. 4:24AM.

Godammit. The entire day was going to be a wash at this point.

With a sigh, she plops down in her desk chair and withdraws the pattern of the final beadwork additions for the dance costumes from the drawer. She turns on her task light and gathers the thread and small jars of colorful beads she needs.

It takes her a few tries to thread the needle before she realizes she can’t see the damn thing properly because her vision is blurred with tears.

“Stop being a baby,” she hisses to herself, wiping her eyes with the heels of her hands.

She takes a deep breath and cracks her back before she engrosses herself in her craft, beading until the sun is just starting to peak over the horizon. Her vision slowly goes blurry and her fingers ache from exhaustion, but she ignores it in favor of distracting herself from stupid boys. And stupidly amazing kisses…

She couldn’t even begin to fathom how she could fall back into old habits with Paul so quickly. 

And just what the hell was the intention of that entire interaction anyway?

Paul told her he loved her. Where was all that when she needed to hear it so long ago? It surely made her heart stop, and godammit… She wanted to say it back. 

But what did that mean for them? What did it mean to _him_?

Kendra isn’t even sure what that all meant to her, and she didn’t want to think too much about it and get her hopes up. His words were _everything…_ and nothing. He was still hiding so many things from her, and his words were empty if his actions wouldn’t change. 

His emotional constipation was the stuff of legends, but so was her patience. They spent so much time working on getting him to open up and be more communicative, and even then it was a feat he could only manage for a handful of people. Now he only seemed to regress.

But, despite it all, the intense love she felt for him was foolishly rushing to the surface again. 

Nope. Nope! _Don’t even go there_ , she tells herself. He was going to crush her a second time, and she wasn’t going to put herself in that kind of situation ever again.

He wasn’t allowed to disappear for weeks and return with no explanation. It wasn’t fair that he could suddenly make all this time for _Sam Uley_ , a classmate who he’d barely ever spoken to before, but he couldn’t be bothered to give _her_ , the supposed love of his life, the time of day. That would’ve been the decent thing to do instead of just leaving things hanging in the air between them right up to the moment she got on that plane to New Mexico. She deserved more from him, not just kisses and I love you’s. How could he claim to love her and be capable of such cruel things?

Pissed off, Kendra continues sewing with more force than necessary until she pricks her pointer finger. She drops the needle with a hiss and sticks her finger in her mouth to prevent the tiny blood drop from staining all of her hard work.

She cautiously flicks an earbud out and is met with blissful silence. Thank God.

An alarm goes off, and the sound of Bailey’s frustrated groan travels down the hall. Kendra swivels in her chair to watch her sister shuffle like a zombie into the bathroom across her room. A minute later, Bailey walks back out still looking like a thing that crawled out of the gutter. As she stands in Kendra’s doorway, Kendra tells her exactly that. Bailey doesn’t look too pleased to hear it. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready for work?” Kendra asks.

Bailey yawns, rubbing her temples. “Switched shifts. Too hungover. Forgot to turn my alarm off,” she gripes. She squints through one eye into the room. “Why are you stress beading?” 

“Paul is my soulmate,” Kendra blurts out, internally thanking her sister for asking so she can get the words out of her system. “When I went to Leah’s, he showed up and that magic nonsense thing you were talking about happened when he looked at me.”

Bailey stands frozen in the doorway with a disbelieving expression, gaping like a fish.

“Then he came here earlier and kissed me,” Kendra continues in a hurry. She swallows. “He- He told me he loved me.”

A slow smile spreads across Bailey’s face as her eyes brighten. “No freaking way. He _what_?” 

Kendra immediately backtracks. “Uh-uh, don’t make that face! It all came out of left field. I don’t know what it means!”

“You don’t know what it means when he says he loves you?!” Bailey bounds into her room with a sudden burst of energy, flopping onto her bed and wrapping the comforter around herself into a cocoon until only her face is visible. “Did you _like_ the kiss?”

Kendra blinks in surprise. “Of course I did. He’s a good kisser,” she mumbles. She shakes her head. “That’s not the point!”

“But did you kiss him back?” Bailey laughs when Kendra groans in frustration as she nods. “Kendra, that’s… Isn’t that good?”

“I don’t trust him,” she whispers. _Or myself_ , she thinks. 

“Do you think he’s lying?”

She remembers his eyes and how sincere they were, but he wouldn’t say anything _else_. She couldn’t understand how he could go on pretending the years of absence didn’t happen.

“What was stopping him from saying it before?” Kendra demands. “He’s the one who did the disappearing act and pushed me aside, and now he wants to tell me he loves me?”

Bailey grimaces. “Whatever is going on with the boys on the rez, he probably didn’t want you to get involved-”

“If that’s true, he came to that conclusion all on his own and made a decision about _our_ relationship without saying a word to _me_. That’s not how a relationship works!”

“I didn’t say it would be a _good_ reason,” Bailey mutters. “Jacob doesn’t want to tell me anything either. None of the boys will.”

Kendra holds her hand up to silence her sister. “Let me stop you there. You’ve only known Jacob for a minute! He’s not obligated to spill his guts to a girl he just met, soulmate or not! But _Paul_?” She stops to laugh humorlessly. “I’ve known him since I was _twelve_ , and he couldn’t manage to tell me _anything_? Where did all those years of trust go, hm? Right down the fucking toilet-” 

“I’m not comparing them,” Bailey interrupts, “but I’m just saying Jacob specifically didn’t want to be around _me_ because he thought some magical hand would force him to bite me, make weird magic babies, and we’d be convinced to live happily ever after.”

 _True love’s first bite_. How could she forget about the nonsense spewed from that traitorous bitch Emily?

“Paul bit me already. He can’t use that lame excuse,” Kendra snaps.

Bailey straightens like she’s been struck by lightning. “He… bit you?” she shrieks as her eyes frantically dart over her. “Where is it? When did he do it? Last night?!”

“No, it was years ago. Before all this craziness happened,” Kendra mumbles. When prom night got a little _too_ heated. “And I’m not telling you where it is!”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!”

“When you told me about those bites the other girls had, I didn’t believe you the first time. It sounded so stupid,” Kendra says defensively. “And- And Paul’s bitten me plenty of times before. That one just never healed. I never thought anything of it until the soul thing happened with us yesterday!”

“So… you already sealed it,” Bailey wonders aloud. “And _then_ he imprinted on you after? It’s all out of order!”

“Yes,” Kendra hisses. “And when it happened I could just _feel_ the dust being kicked off the bond, like it was just rebooting or something. It must’ve been there for _over two years_ if that bite actually means anything. And he knew about it the whole time!”

“That’s… that’s…” Bailey struggles to find something to say that could defend Paul. Good.

“Why wouldn’t he want to tell me about it, if it wasn’t going to change anything between us?” Kendra knocks a jar of beads from her desk in her anger. “We were already together. We were already in love! _He’s_ the one who didn’t want me anymore. Oh, but wait, he actually _did_ want me this _whole time,_ but just lied to me to make me think he didn’t. And for _what_?”

Bailey stares at her with wide eyes. “I don’t know, but Paul doesn’t say things unless he means it,” she whispers.

“So I’m supposed to just forgive him and pretend like nothing happened because he loves me?”

“Of course not,” Bailey scoffs. “But what _do_ you want to hear, if there’s any hope for forgiveness?”

“An explanation!” Kendra explodes. She takes a breath to calm herself and resettles in her seat. Quieter, she says, “Sorry.”

“You’re fine.”

“I think we just need to talk and put everything out there,” Kendra murmurs. “I need an explanation from him if there’s gonna be any hope of closure because...” Her next words feel like a slur coming from her lips, and she squeezes her eyes shut. “I don’t know if this is worth fighting for anymore.”

“Ken…” Bailey holds out her arms, and Kendra abandons her desk to slip inside the cocoon and cuddle close to her sister. Bailey tugs the sheets over their heads. It was something they did when they would sneak in each other’s rooms when they were younger and had secrets to share late at night.

“I love him. I _do_ ,” she confesses in whisper. There’s no mincing words about it. “Paul knows me better than anyone, and it wasn’t easy getting to that point. We had _years_ to curate that…” She shakes her head slowly. “I know I’m young, and there’s plenty of other good men out there. I’ve even had plenty of great sex with other people, but it’s the intimacy that’s never there. And just the _thought_ of going through that all over again with someone else… I don’t want to. I can’t.”

Especially when she knew in her gut there was nothing wrong with their relationship in the first place. Up until the day he disappeared, they were fine. Or at least she thought they were. There was never anything so wrong that they couldn’t talk it out and work through it, but he wouldn’t have it.

Kendra squeezes her eyes shut against the burn of tears, tucking her face into the comforter. “I don’t want him to hurt me again, either.” 

“Are you crying?” Bailey whispers.

“No, I’m just tired,” Kendra half-lies. She _is_ burnt out.

Bailey makes a disbelieving noise in the back of her throat but doesn’t push, and Kendra is grateful for it. Instead her sister takes her hand in both of hers and clutches in under her chin, her eyes shiny with reassurance. Kendra stares back into them until she drifts off and falls into a dreamless sleep.

She sleeps for what only feels like a few seconds before she’s awakened by Bailey struggling to free herself from the blankets. Kendra groans in annoyance at her sister, batting her wriggling body away until Bailey falls on the floor. She listens to her sister scrambling from the room and jumps at the sound of a door slamming. Seconds later, she picks up on the unpleasant sounds of Bailey retching in the bathroom.

Kendra rubs the sleep from her eyes. “Nobody told you to drink so much,” she calls out.

“Shut up!” 

Bailey gags again.

Kendra grimaces and pulls the sheets back over her head, but she knows there’s no hope for sleep now. With an annoyed huff she shoves the sheets away and rolls over, snatching her phone from the nightstand. She dials Leah’s number and flops onto her back as she listens to it ring. 

“It’s too early to have a crisis,” Leah complains as soon as she picks up.

Kendra rolls her eyes. “It’s never too early for a crisis.” She glances at her phone. “And it’s way past noon! What are you doing right now?” 

Leah yawns. “I was sleeping, but I guess I’m doing whatever you’re doing?” she says in an uncertain voice.

“Good. Can you come play doctor for my sister and we can have brunch? I don’t feel like dealing with her on my own.”

“You’re such a caring sister,” Leah deadpans.

Kendra smirks. “Don’t I know it?”

Leah hangs up with a short laugh. She arrives within the next ten minutes and Kendra greets her at the door still in her pajamas. Leah is holding a tupperware of what looks like chicken soup, and she raises her eyebrows as she glances at Kendra.

“You look like shit.”

Kendra shrugs. “I feel like it. Pancakes?”

“I don’t trust you anywhere near the stove,” Leah mumbles, elbowing her way past Kendra on her way to the kitchen.

“I can cook things if it comes from a box,” Kendra defends, chasing after Leah. “Or if it can be microwaved!”

Leah places her tupperware down on the counter and turns to Kendra with a scowl. “ _I’m_ making the pancakes before you burn your house down.”

Kendra hides a smirk as she sits at the island. “Fine, fine,” she says in a sing-song voice.

Leah pauses as she’s pulling ingredients from the cabinet and looks over her shoulder. Kendra spins in her chair to see what’s got her attention and notices Bailey walking toward them with a toothbrush in her mouth.

“Hey, do you wanna marathon Alien today-”

Bailey stops short when she spots Leah, who smirks and turns around to give her full attention. The toothbrush comes to a stop in her mouth, and her cheeks turn pink.

“Well, well, well. Look who’s back from the dead,” Leah teases, giving her a onceover. She jerks her chin. “You gonna call that number back?”

Bailey stares down at the lipstick on her arm, confused, until realization makes her eyes widen. “I forgot about that,” she squeaks. Then her eyes travel downward, and her blush deepens as she becomes aware of how she’s only dressed in a t-shirt and panties in front of Leah. She yanks the hem of her t-shirt down and runs away with a garbled noise.

Kendra laughs. “That never gets old.” She rests her chin in her hands. “Still the charmer, I see.” 

Leah smiles and raises her hands in faux innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“You like to see her squirm.” 

Her smile turns mischievous. “Maybe I do.” 

Bailey returns to the kitchen with flannel pants on and a familiar leather jacket folded in her arms. She holds it out to Leah like a sacred offering. “Th-Thanks for the… for letting me borrow your jacket,” she mumbles.

Leah waves her off. “I don’t need it back. It looks better on you, anyway.”

Comically, Bailey’s blush worsens. She vehemently shakes her head. “Oh, no, I couldn’t keep-”

“And I brought you soup. You were feeling sick, right?” Leah says, bringing her hand to Bailey’s forehead. Bailey looks ready to spontaneously combust. “You don’t feel warm, so that’s good.”

Bailey is saved from a response by the phone ringing. “I’ll get it!” she yips as she scampers away, clutching the leather jacket tightly to her chest. Leah watches her go with a smirk. 

It turns out to be none other than Jacob Black on the phone, apparently worried about Bailey’s whereabouts. She implores him to not freak out, that she simply switched shifts to another day because she’s hungover. 

Kendra makes kissy faces while she talks, and Bailey gives her the finger as she assures the boy she’ll see him on Saturday. She hangs up and scowls at Kendra.

“Wow, loverboy calls on you while you’re with your crush. However will you juggle the two?” Kendra asks.

Bailey’s eyes widen, darting to Leah and back. “Shut _up_ ,” she hisses, escaping to the bathroom. Seconds later, the sound of the shower registers in Kendra’s ears.

Leah takes a bowl from the cupboard and begins mixing the pancake ingredients with a whisk. “Funny,” she remarks in a low voice. “Jacob sounded pretty keyed up over not being able to see her.”

“You could _hear_ that?”

“Wolf,” is all she says.

Kendra recalls Quil saying something similar last night. “What happened in the parking lot? Why were you getting all wolfy over that weirdo we saw?”

“That _weirdo_ was a vampire.” Leah says with a shrug. Like it was the most obvious and simple thing in the world.

“A _VAMPIRE_?” Kendra screeches.

Leah drops the whisk to cover Kendra’s mouth and gazes meaningfully down the hall. “Yes, a vampire,” she whisper-shouts. “Keep it down!”

“Why are you so gung-ho about following Jacob’s lead?” Kendra hisses back. “I don’t like keeping secrets from her. This is a _huge_ secret! She’s gonna be pissed when she finds out I already know!”

“Because I understand what Jacob is going through, and it’s more complicated than just being a werewolf,” Leah says, walking toward the stove with the bowl. “I admit it’s not his best idea, but I’d rather not contribute to making things worse for him.” She frowns with a contemplative look. “Plus, he was there for me… or he _tried_ to be, in his own way. This is what _I_ can do for him.”

Kendra sighs. “ _Fine,_ ” she eventually says. If it meant that much to Leah, she could keep it a secret for a while longer. “So that guy was trying to eat us?”

“Trying to eat _you_. Werewolves apparently smell nasty to them,” Leah replies.

“ _Really_?”

“Yup.” Leah nods. “And when I kicked it, I snapped my femur.”

“You snapped your _what_?” Kendra almost shrieks. 

“Relax, it healed. Wolf thing.”

Kendra stares at her in awe. “That’s _cool_.”

Leah shakes her head as she begins pouring batter into a pan. “It’s not all sunshine and rainbows,” she says. “Turns out our alpha is a fucking nutcase.”

“You guys are just figuring that out?”

“Basically?” Leah grimaces. “Paul actually knew, and he tried to stop me from going to Emily’s that day, but I… I didn’t want to hear it.”

Kendra’s hand drops from her chin. “He _what_?”

“That whole love at first sight thing? Sam made that up. Paul found out about it somehow, and Sam alpha ordered him to shut up about it,” Leah explains. “He _literally_ can’t talk about it, so Sam has been free to trick everyone else into believing his golden rules about imprinting.”

“What did I tell you, Lee? Control freak!” Kendra shakes her head angrily. “No wonder Paul’s such a clam again. There’s no safe space to talk!”

The thought makes her inexplicably angry. What the _hell_ gave Sam the right to do something like that? Especially to Paul of all people. He already had a hard time speaking as he is, and the constant retaliation for _trying_ to speak up must have been what wore down any headway he made.

“He gets it the worst whenever he talks back to Sam,” Leah says grimly. “I always thought he was a kiss ass to Sam, but now…”

Kendra briefly closes her eyes and tries very hard to not scream. She was angry with Paul, but he definitely didn’t deserve _that_ kind of treatment.

“Paul’s a lot of things but he’s no kiss ass,” she grits out.

“Yeah, I know that now,” Leah mutters. “He’s always been hard to read, even when we share minds.”

“You _share minds_?”

“Only when we’re wolves. It’s like telepathy. We can all hear each other’s thoughts.”

Kendra pauses. “So then… you must know about the kiss and the ‘I love you’ stuff.” 

Leah nods. “Yeah, I was that noise that stopped you from making a _terrible_ mistake.” She points a spatula at Kendra. “You’re welcome, by the way!” 

Kendra weakly jokes, “Cockblocking me, Clearwater?”

“Yes, because you almost got dickmatized!” 

Kendra crosses her arms and looks away. “I wasn’t gonna have sex with him on the roof!” she denies.

“But you would’ve had sex with him _somewhere else_ if I wasn’t there to stop you?” Leah counters.

“No!” Kendra blushes when Leah raises a brow. “I- I would’ve tried very hard not to!”

“You guys need to talk, as in _words_ , remember? When will you do that?” 

Kendra scowls. “I’m _not_ chasing him. He needs to come to _me_. The ball is in his court and he knows it.”

Leah sighs, turning her attention back to flipping the pancakes. “Good luck with that.”

* * *

Kendra isn’t surprised when the weekend comes around and Paul still hasn’t worked up the nerve to talk to her yet. 

She spent the past two days finishing up the final touches for dance costumes and refamiliarizing herself with La Push. Apparently Bailey made it a ritual to hang out with the two giant wolf boys Kendra met when she landed, and she spent her entire Friday afternoon with them (fixing up Embry’s new dirt bike, Bailey told her) before she came home in the evening. 

In between sewing and harassing Leah for company when her own sister was busy, Kendra would go on walks along the beach to collect seashells or hike the local trails. She even managed to bribe Leah into getting Seth to put up a crudely made poster advertising her services to tailor and customize dresses for the upcoming prom at the tribal school.

She manages to get a few takers, and on Saturday morning she begins to work on a dress that a senior dropped off the evening prior. The sound of the front door opening makes her pause, and she peaks past her doorway and catches Bailey hauling a bunch of grocery bags to the kitchen. 

Kendra walks over with curious eyes and watches her sister speed through unpacking the bags. “What’s the hurry?”

Bailey pauses with a loaf of bread in her hands. “I have groceries sitting in the car still,” she replies. “Gotta head to Jacob’s house next.”

“You buy them groceries?” Kendra demands.

“Billy gives me money for it,” Bailey says flippantly. She starts filling up the fridge with her haul. “And I do some meal prep since he can’t get around much.”

Kendra crosses her arms. “Why doesn’t Jacob do it?”

“Doesn’t have time.”

 _Because of the werewolf stuff_ , Kendra thinks to herself. “I wanna go,” she insists.

“No,” Bailey retorts.

“ _No_?”

Bailey straightens up and narrows her eyes with suspicion. “Why do you want to go?” she asks. 

“Am I not allowed to hang out with my sister? Am I not allowed to visit my own chief?”

In reality, Kendra only wants to go to finally size up her sister’s soulmate, the ever-elusive Jacob Black, with her own eyes. She also wants to take the opportunity to ask Billy for any insight about Paul’s behavior.

Bailey still looks suspicious, but she nods. “Fine. Let’s leave in ten minutes. But you need to behave yourself,” she says. “Jacob already doesn’t like me doing this stuff. It’s- It’s a pride thing. He’s already embarrassed about it, so if he’s uncomfortable with you being there then you have to leave.”

“Touchy.” She falters when Bailey glares at her. “Alright, alright! I will keep it PG.”

Kendra sticks her tongue out and dodges a banana lobbed at her head. She turns away with a laugh and heads to her room to change into a floral skirt that swishes near her calves and a cozy oatmeal sweater. She slides her feet into a pair of brown boots and returns to the main hallway.

“Cute,” Bailey remarks.

Kendra quirks her head in thanks, spinning in a circle to make her skirt float in the air. “I know.”

“By the way…” Bailey holds out a basket of greens and picks out a ripped piece of fabric. “This crap was all over the garden. It looks like denim.” 

Kendra blinks. It’s undoubtedly from Paul when he decided to wolf out as he jumped from the roof the other day. “Uh…”

Bailey scowls. “Did you lie and have wild sex with Paul out there?” she demands. “That’s unsanitary. We eat the things I grow out there, you know!”

Kendra stares between the scrap of denim and her sister before she bursts into laughter. “I swear I didn’t.”

Bailey puffs out her cheeks and nods, making Kendra laugh again. They both make their way out of the house and lock up before Bailey reverses out the driveway. The drive isn’t too long, and soon the familiar red house comes into view down the road.

Bailey flinches and makes a soft sound in the pack of her throat, causing Kendra to turn to her in confusion. “I can sense Jacob nearby,” she explains. “That doesn’t happen to you?”

“Oh, it sure does,” Kendra grumbles, recalling how Paul hung around that night and she could feel his presence like a persistent gnat.

As Bailey rolls up the dirt drive, the tallest man Kendra has probably ever seen in her entire life runs from the house. Judging by the smile, it could only be Jacob. Bailey puts the car into park and hardly gets out before she’s grabbed up in an enthusiastic hug, looking just as surprised as Kendra when he spins her around.

“Where’s the fire?” Bailey asks.

“I just missed you,” he murmurs.

Bailey laughs. “It’s only been two days!”

Jacob shrugs. “Got used to being around you more often.”

Kendra watches them through the windshield with narrow eyes. Bailey always insisted before that they were just friends, but they look entirely too cozy for that. At least the way Jacob’s gaze softens on Bailey and lingers far too long says so. She unbuckles her seatbelt and opens the door.

Bailey jumps down with a nervous glance and tugs Kendra to her side. “Um, Jacob, this is my sister, Kendra,” she says. “She _insisted_ on coming along to see Billy. But if that’s not okay, say the word. No hard feelings.”

“Speak for yourself,” Kendra murmurs, elbowing her sister away. She holds out her hand. “Nice to finally meet you, Jacob. I’ve heard a lot about you from this one over the phone.”

He grins and takes her hand. “Good things I hope?”

“Not really,” Kendra retorts. He blinks in surprise. “I hope you know it’s absolutely _not_ cute for a boy to be mean to a girl just because he likes her.”

Jacob sputters at that.

Bailey turns to her with wide, threat-filled eyes. “I will murder you,” she growls.

“Good luck,” Kendra taunts.

“We talked it out,” Jacob cuts in before they can really get into it. “I, uh… I know I was being an ass to your sister before, but I promise it won’t happen again.”

Kendra eyes him for a few seconds. “Fine,” she sighs. She turns to her sister’s scathing eyes with a smirk. “Are you gonna pop the trunk or what?”

Bailey presses the button on the key fob and walks to the trunk in a huff. She could have a hissy fit all she wants. Kendra was only looking out for her in the best way she knew how. And Jacob seems like an alright guy so far, taking her critical words without complaint as he helps bring the groceries inside.

Still, Kendra continues to test his limits throughout the morning with teasing quips as she (minimally) helps out by cutting vegetables, and that earns her strikes on the hand from Bailey with a wooden spoon. The whacks are particularly painful when Kendra starts calling Jacob ‘loverboy’ just to see how he would react, but the throbbing on the back of her hands are worth it when she catches the tips of Jacob’s ears turning red.

“Would you stop it,” Bailey hisses at one point.

Kendra can’t begin to imagine how her sister could be so oblivious. His behavior around her was painfully obvious at this point. The giant boy has a crush on her, and Bailey is seeing things all wrong on her end. She was either in denial or actually clueless. Kendra was banking on the cluelessness.

“So, loverboy, is your dad home today?” Kendra snatches her hand out of the way of the incoming spoon.

“He’s probably sleeping in,” Jacob mumbles.

“Not anymore!”

They all turn to Billy as he comes into the kitchen. Kendra rolls her eyes as her sister profusely apologizes if their noise woke him up. He waves Bailey off with a smile and blinks in surprise at Kendra.

“Look what the cat dragged in!” he jokes loudly. He winks at Kendra. “Congratulations on that degree, young lady! I know Diana would be real proud of you.”

The reminder stings, and Bailey sucks in a sharp breath beside her, but Kendra manages to grin at him. “Thanks,” she says softly.

“You okay?” she hears Jacob murmur.

Bailey straightens up when everyone turns their gaze to her suspiciously wet eyes. “Yes. I’m fine,” she insists. She clears her throat and glances at Kendra. “I have to head to work soon.”

“I, uh, I wanted to catch up with Billy, actually,” Kendra says.

Bailey frowns. “How will you get home?”

“I can drive you to work,” Jacob offers. A smile lights up his face. “Have you ever been on a motorcycle before?”

“I’ll see you later,” Bailey says in a hurry, tossing the car keys at Kendra without a second glance.

Kendra snorts as Jacob and Bailey hurry out of the house like two kids about to get up to no good. She shakes her head at the sound of Bailey’s excited screams over the roar of a motorcycle before the sound eventually drowns out as they drive further from the house. Billy chuckles along with her and picks an apple out of the fruit bowl.

“It’s good to see him smiling like that again,” he says quietly.

Kendra takes a seat at the dining table. “I know about the wolves. And the imprint stuff,” she says without any preamble. 

Billy slowly nods and licks his lips. “So Paul finally did it,” he guesses. 

“You knew about us?” 

Billy nods again. “Let me give you something.” He leaves the kitchen and returns a minute later with a plain envelope in his hand. Her name is scrawled on the front in Diana’s handwriting.

“Been savin’ that for you,” he murmurs. “Diana didn’t want you to have that ‘til after you graduated, if you ever came back to the rez again. She wanted to give it to you herself, but...” He clears his throat and looks away.

Kendra carefully opens the envelope and the contents of it falls into her lap. She gapes at it in shock, not believing what she’s looking at.

It was a bracelet, a childish-looking thing she made for Paul when they were younger. It served as a reminder token for him to look at whenever he wanted to be near her but couldn’t. The idea was that one glance at it would immediately let her know he was thinking of her and she in turn would think of him. It was a silly, impossible thing made up between two kids, but it used to mean everything in the world to her.

“What… why did she have…?” 

“Paul asked her to give it to you, the night she forbade him from seeing you,” Billy says. 

Kendra’s head jerks up. “She did _what_?” 

Billy looks uncomfortable as he shifts in his chair. “Paul must’ve thought she didn’t know what the bracelet meant, but she knew. She didn’t want it to give you hope... that you would ever see him again. So you wouldn’t try to seek him out anymore.” 

“What… are you _talking_ about?”

“Diana recognized how bonded you both were, long before he phased. She knew his genetic line, but there were no vampire appearances for generations.” Billy scowls. “Until the Cullens came to town two years ago. As the principal of the tribal school and a council member, she was the best person to keep track of the boys as they began to show symptoms, so she knew when Paul was beginning to change. She didn’t want him to imprint on you.”

Kendra has to fight to get the word past her lips. “Why?”

“You were young. You just got that scholarship to your dream school, honey. You were going places, but Paul is duty bound to these lands for a while yet,” Billy explains in a pleading voice. “He wouldn’t have been able to go with you. She didn’t want you to let go of your dreams to stay with him... She suspected you wouldn’t leave here once he told you the truth.”

For a few minutes, Kendra is silent. She stares, seething, at the bracelet clutched in her fingers.

Billy fills the silence with more rambling. “H-He didn’t want to stay away, but Diana had a… a compelling argument.”

Compelling. _Compelling_? She’ll show _him_ compelling.

Kendra abruptly stands, and Billy startles, asking what she plans to do.

“He’ll know where to be,” is all she can manage.

Kendra storms out of the house and throws herself into the car. She drives on autopilot, navigating the car by muscle memory alone through the woods that border the Quillayute River and throws the car into park. A drizzle picks up as she steps out, but she doesn’t care.

She walks to what used to be her favorite spot to be alone or meet with Paul: the midway point between his house and hers along the river. The splashing of the river gets louder as she approaches, and she can also make out the sound of a dog barking. The shiver running down her spine tells her Paul is near.

Kendra stops dead in her tracks when she sees Paul standing at the river bank, tossing a ball into the water. Penny splashes around to retrieve it, and gives up on it entirely when she sees Kendra. After a quick shake, Penny runs to Kendra with a whining bark and wriggles her lithe body everywhere as Kendra crouches with open arms.

“Hi there, baby girl. You’re so sweet,” she murmurs with affection, running her hands over Penny’s back and pressing kisses to her muzzle. “Did you miss mama? Did you? I missed you, too, baby.”

She looks up from her petting and throws the bracelet at Paul. He catches it, and looks at it in his palm with silent astonishment. 

“We’re talking,” Kendra tells him slowly. “Right _now_.” She pauses. “Scratch that. I know you won’t talk, but _I_ need to talk about it. So you can just stand there and listen for a minute. That is the _least_ you can do!”

Paul only swallows noisily before he nods once. Kendra kisses Penny’s muzzle one more time and walks closer to him.

“Nine years between us and I have to find out what’s going on from everyone else but you!” she spits. “I spent two years trying to wrap my head around what could’ve possibly gone wrong. I kept replaying every moment, over and over and _over_ again, and nothing came up.”

Paul looks her right in the eye as she lays into him, with those stupid brown eyes she used to love so much, and they infuriate her even more.

“And you know what kills me? We used to tell each other _everything_. There were never secrets between us!” Kendra stabs a finger at his chest. “I could care less that you turn into a wolf! You could’ve told me you were a fucking leprechaun and it wouldn’t matter, but at least I would _know_ instead of wondering for _years_ what I did that was so wrong for you to just pretend like I didn’t exist anymore! Did Ma tell you to do _that_ , too?!”

Kendra pauses, waiting for Paul to just fucking say _something,_ but he doesn’t. The only thing he offers her is that grieved look of his, and she can’t stand looking at it anymore. With a shout of frustration, she steps away from him and sits down on a boulder by the river, staring angrily at the water rushing by and trying to unsuccessfully ignore the clawing sadness building up in her throat. Penny climbs up next to her, resting her head on her paws and staring up with her big eyes.

“Please say something now,” Kendra whispers.

Paul’s long legs bracket hers as his arms wrap around her shoulders, pulling her back firmly against his chest. He feels like a giant furnace surrounding her, shielding her from the rain and cold.

“I’m sorry,” he finally murmurs, hooking his chin over her shoulder and resting his cheek against hers. “I never wanted to hurt you. I wanted to protect you.”

“You could have just told me that!” Kendra scoffs. “How could you decide something like that on your own? Why couldn’t you discuss anything with _me_? We were-”

The words die in her throat when feels all of her emotions catching up to her. She takes a deep breath to settle herself, but it only comes out as a shaky sob. She cups her hands over her mouth to muffle the sound and stares in horror at the water. He isn’t supposed to see her cry like this.

Kendra tries to pull away, but his arms only tighten around her. He murmurs reassurances in her ear and that only makes her cry more.

“Stop comforting me,” she sobs. Despite her words she twists toward him and clutches at his sweatshirt, pressing her face against his broad chest. “I’m really mad at you.”

Paul slowly rubs her back. “I know.”

That only makes it worse, but he continues to hold her through it until the worst is over. It takes her an embarrassingly long time to calm down enough to be able to speak.

“I feel…” Kendra pauses, struggling to find the right words. “Betrayed.”

Paul stiffens. “By me?”

“Yes!” she says vehemently. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Kendra-”

“Even without all the imprinting stuff, you could’ve told me what happened to you.” Kendra pauses to wipe at her stinging eyes, but it’s a fruitless effort as more tears follow. “You could’ve at least answered the _phone_ if you couldn’t see me.”

“Would that have made it any better?”

“Yes. A thousand times yes!” she snaps. “I was worried sick about you! I thought– _God_ , I thought your father came back and did something horrible to you. Do you know how many times I looked for you thinking I’d find you mangled up somewhere? Or dead!”

The images that run through her head make her want to cry even more, and she really has to stop before she cries herself to a husk. How many times has this stupid boy shown up to school after disappearing for a handful of days with bandages and a hospital bracelet that he refused to explain? Or when he’d show up at her bedroom window in the middle of the night, mute and hungry, looking like he saw a ghost? She was scared for him everyday for _years_. How could he think the alternative was the better option?

“Then you returned with Sam,” she spits. “I wasn’t sure if I should’ve been relieved or not. You pretend I don’t exist, but at least you’re alive, right?” She squeezes her eyes shut. “What was I supposed to think when you just walked away from me every time I tried to see you? So… so _easily_?”

“It wasn’t easy,” Paul argues in a rough voice.

“That’s not how it looked to me!” He squeezes her shoulders tighter. “You know me. You knew that would hurt me, and you did it anyway! Of all times, you couldn’t at least _say_ something? Send me an _email_? There were so many things you could’ve done even if Ma told you not to see me anymore!”

“Because I knew the moment I talked to you, I wouldn’t be able to _just_ talk to you. I would _have_ to see you, and after what Diana told me…” Paul trails off, shaking his head. “She was right. You had an opportunity to get out of here and I wasn’t gonna fuck that up.”

“I cannot believe Ma had the _nerve_ to interfere with our relationship like that-”

“Kendra, don’t blame her-”

“ _It wasn’t her call to make_!” Kendra shouts. Penny jumps at the volume, and Kendra quickly shushes her until she lays back down. “You shouldn’t have listened to her! You should’ve just told me everything from the beginning so I could decide for _myself_ what I wanted to do. But _neither_ of you let me do that. You just decided for me on your own! That’s not _fair_. This is _our_ relationship _,_ not hers!”

“I’m sorry.” His forehead falls into the crook of her neck, and his breath is hot against her skin. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“When you left, I thought you couldn’t trust me enough to just... tell me what was going on,” Kendra murmurs. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes. With my life,” Paul says fiercely. 

Kendra smiles sadly. “For a long time I felt like you didn’t. I _still_ feel that way, and I don’t think that feeling isn’t going to disappear overnight...”

Paul picks up his head. “You are so loved, Kendra. There aren’t words…” His thumb traces the apple of her cheek as he stares into her eyes. “I want you to know that. Okay? No matter what.”

He slots his lips against hers, and she melts into it with a whimper. Every swipe of his lips was like the slam of a hammer against hot metal, lighting up sparks in her nerve endings and engulfing her skin in tiny fires. His kisses were always too potent for her.

Paul pulls back with a moan, pinching her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “I didn’t know that last time in my bed was… the last time. I didn’t get to say goodbye the right way, or give you a proper kiss,” he breathes. He runs a shaky hand over his face. “Fuck, this is so hard.”

Kendra brings a trembling hand up to grasp his wrist. “Goodbye?” she croaks. “Why are you saying goodbye right now?”

“I’m sorry. I have to.”

She slowly shakes her head. “You love me, but you have to let me go? You don’t mean that.”

“Of course not, but I have to,” Paul repeats with an edge.

“Are you still trying to be brave to protect me?” Kendra asks sharply. “I don’t care if you’re a werewolf! I don’t care about the soulmate thing, or the stupid bite!”

“That’s not the whole picture,” he says desperately. 

A faint howl in the distance makes Paul tense up. Kendra tugs on his sweatshirt to get him to look at her again.

“Don’t do this to me, Paul. Not again.” He looks away guiltily, but she presses on. “Don’t make decisions for me. I’m a big girl. You can’t keep shutting me out of this conversation. If there’s more, _tell me_ so we can talk about it. Together.”

“I can’t right now.” He starts vibrating when a chorus of howls rip through the air. His head tilts as his nostrils flare. “Something is wrong. I have to go. You should go home, too.”

Kendra grips his sweatshirt tighter. “I can’t…” She grinds her teeth.

“Later,” he whispers. He looks her in the eye, and they’re glowing yellow. “I will come back, and we will talk about it. But for now, I need you to take Penny home for me, okay?”

Kendra’s eyes dart all over his face, unable to keep eye contact with those eerie eyes. She tucks her head under his chin instead. “Promise?” she asks in a watery voice.

He crushes her to his chest. “I swear,” he murmurs against her hair.

She closes her eyes, trying to will herself to believe in him. “Okay,” she whispers.

The howling starts again, and his shivers renew. He gently pushes her shoulders, and Kendra finds that lifting her head from his shoulder feels like moving an insurmountable weight. She doesn’t want to let him go, and, without her permission, her cheeks are once again drenched with tears. 

Paul looks horrified. “You don’t trust me,” he mouths. He touches her cheek, but she knocks his hand away and stands.

“I’m trying to,” she whispers back. Without his body heat, she’s abruptly cold in the rain. She crosses her arms to maintain body heat and clicks her tongue. “Penny, let’s go.”

She walks away, forcing herself not to look back, and Penny dutifully trots after her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's gonna get wild from here. Also, we're halfway done with this fic! Insanity. Thanks for sticking with me, and please leave a comment/kudos if you like!


	16. Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my GOD, this was a bitch to write. I rewrote it three times. Still not sure if I like it very much, but oh well.
> 
> Quick content warning: There is a reference to child abuse in this chapter.

Three days.

It’s been three days since the imprint. Three days since Paul last saw Kendra and spoke to her, and he feels terrible the entire time. He fights against every instinct that screams at him to go to her and give the explanation she deserves. To make things _right_ again. He’s still reeling from the entire conversation, from the kiss that he shouldn’t have sought after. It only made everything worse.

Ever since his wolf has been out of control, thrashing about in the confines of Paul’s mind. Just begging to be let out. Paul knows it will make him go straight to Kendra if he lets his wolf have full reign, and it would go against every promise he made. He already slipped up once on the rooftop, and he’s hard pressed to make that mistake and fall to temptation again.

His resolve makes his wolf angry, and the anger presses on Paul like a heavy weight that coats his entire body. Paul and his wolf are in a constant battle for control over his body. It makes any movement that isn’t with the intention of going to Kendra nearly impossible, as if he were walking through quicksand.

That in turn makes Paul irritated, too, and over the course of the three days away from Kendra he’s pumped full of a double dose of fury with nowhere to put it. The crazy hours of his construction job don’t help as much anymore; his muscles tremble after each shift, but it’s not with exhaustion– it’s pure _rage_ , and the shakes never go away. 

Patrol shifts have become a source of annoyance now, too. Between Jared talking his ear off about the imprint or Sam’s overbearing and condescending tones trying to bully Jacob into biting Bailey, Paul is sure he’s reaching a new level of hatred for the man. 

Sam even has the audacity to try to hound Paul about the bite in front of the pack, acting as if he _doesn’t_ know the complicated situation around his imprint with Kendra, but Paul says nothing. He can’t say anything, and Sam knows it. He likes to rub it in Paul’s face. Nearly the entire pack knows the drama surrounding that thanks to Jacob’s big mouth, but he’s also the only person who can do anything about it and he’s too chicken shit to step up to the plate. 

So Paul walks away every time in angry silence. The longer it goes on, the more black rage he can feel pooling in his soul like sludge. In such a short amount of time, Paul has moments when he gets so angry he loses time and disengages from the world entirely. It only feels like seconds at a time, but when he finally manages to snap out of it, Paul finds himself standing alone in the middle of the forest by Kendra’s childhood home without understanding how he got there in the first place. In those moments, his wolf is always abnormally silent; it only kicks up an uproar when Paul turns his back to return home.

And each time, Paul goes straight to his bathroom to stare at his reflection in the medicine cabinet’s mirror, particularly at his eyes that glow yellow of their own accord. He growls in frustration at his mirror image, and he can _feel_ his wolf staring back at him.

 _Fool_ , he imagines it would scream if it could talk.

The sound of his phone ringing pulls him from his imaginations. The caller ID reads _Billy Black_. Paul answers the phone and says nothing.

“She knows, son,” Billy says in a solemn voice. It’s the exact opposite of what Paul needs to hear right now. “She said you’d know where she’ll be.”

Paul ends the call before Billy can say anything more. He doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t want to know how she found out. She _knows_ , and that’s all he can concentrate on.

His gaze falls unseeingly to the sink, and then he rips the medicine cabinet out of the wall and smashes it in the bathtub. He leans over the sink, breathing harshly in an attempt to center himself. Penny barks at the abrupt noise somewhere behind him. He closes his eyes and takes another breath.

When he opens them again he’s suddenly standing in the rain, and Penny is still barking at him, only now she’s jumping around impatiently along the river bank. He glances down at the tennis ball in his hand, and woodenly tosses the ball into the water. _How the hell_ …?

There’s a prickle in the back of his neck, and as Paul inhales, he’s consumed in a honeyed scent. He turns, and there’s Kendra, looking like a breath of fresh air with that loving smile on her face as she greets Penny. Her eyes flash to his, and he’s momentarily stunned. 

Paul almost doesn’t catch the projectile she hurls at him. He uncurls his fingers and stares at his palm in disbelief. It’s his bracelet, the one Kendra handmade for him with tiny brown cowrie shells from the beach held together by a leather cord. Why is she returning it to him?

He doesn’t know what to say, and he accepts Kendra’s scathing words directed toward him because he knows she needs it. And it’s what he deserves, after everything.

After Kendra gets everything out, she deflates, and turns away from him. “Please say something now,” she whispers.

Paul follows, because he has to. _He can’t stand watching her walk away from him anymore_. He gives into the compulsion to be near her, _touching her_ , like a tether is attached between them. He wraps himself around Kendra until she’s engulfed by him, tucked away from the rest of the world and touching every part of him possible. The perfect, lethal dose of honeycomb and apricots… all to himself.

“I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. I wanted to protect you,” Paul tells her. But it wasn’t his place to keep things from her, to make decisions for her. He knows that now, but he thought… he thought he was doing the right thing before.

Kendra begins to cry, and _god_ , Paul hates it when she cries. She tries to get away from him, still reluctant to show anyone weakness, but he can’t let her go. He _can’t_. She’s the steady dam keeping the floodgates what’s surely his newfound insanity from overflowing.

He pulls her closer as she tucks her face against him, and every tear that seeps into the cotton of his sweatshirt feels like a lashing against his soul. She cries for a long time. Much, _much_ too long, and the guilt piles on. _He_ did this. His Kendra, usually so strong and confident, crumbles because of mistakes he’s made.

Kendra hurls painful questions and accusations at him, and he tries his best to meet them with all the sincerity and honesty he can muster. When she questions his trust in _her_ , it makes him want to scream. He almost does when she tells him her doubt won’t go away overnight. He can’t help but interpret her words to mean that her doubt may _never_ go away.

Paul tells Kendra the only thing he can hope she could never doubt: he loves her, no matter what. His mouth seizes hers hungrily, and he cards his hands through her hair, the pretty curls already tightening from the rain. She tastes like how she smells– candied, sugar sweet, and it seduces Paul into tugging her closer and kissing her with more insistence as he gets lost in her scent and the sound she makes in the back of her throat.

The content purr from his wolf makes Paul resurface, and pulling away from Kendra’s lips is more of a struggle than he cares to admit. He grasps her chin to keep those addicting lips away when she habitually tilts her head back in a wordless plea for more.

That kiss was leaps and bounds better than the joke of a kiss they parted with two years ago. With this… he can finally force himself to say a proper goodbye.

“Goodbye?” The intensity fades from Kendra’s eyes. “Why are you saying goodbye right now?”

The look on her face nearly makes Paul change his mind, but he remains steadfast. They argue over it, but a howl averts his attention and makes the hairs on his arms raise.

It’s a warning. Somebody on patrol picked up a fresh trail.

“Don’t do this to me, Paul. Not again,” Kendra begs him, and his gaze goes right back to her.

 _But it’s for your own good_ , Paul almost says. He knows it’s not fair. _He knows_ he shouldn’t be making these decisions for her, but… he can’t, on good consciousness, let anything come out of this imprint or the bite. He has to let her be free. _Really_ free. When she hears the whole truth, she’ll realize that, too, and thank him.

More howls rip through the air. Distress signals. It sounds like everyone is being summoned for this. Something is definitely wrong and deadly serious, and Paul trembles in anticipation.

His wolf restlessly shifts beneath this skin. There’s danger nearby, and Kendra is too close to the action. Even the animals know, as they’ve done silent as well. 

Paul insists that she leaves, but she won’t let him go. He knows the exact feeling. He doesn’t want to let her go either. But the _danger_ …

“Later.” He looks her right in the eye so she knows he’s serious. “I will come back, and we will talk about it. But for now, I need you to take Penny home for me, okay?”

“Promise?” 

Paul closes his eyes, ashamed. Her lack of faith in him is just proof of all damage he’s done to her. He pulls her closer. There’s a thousand things he wants to say, but he just takes in her scent one more time, and vows on it.

The howling picks up again, and Paul has to fight the rush of violence that briefly overcomes him. His teeth ache with the need to tear and destroy. He pushes Kendra away to distance her from his dark thoughts. She _still_ won’t look at him. Her eyes are bloodshot and teary, and he just _knows_.

“You don’t trust me,” he says in dismayed realization. He knows it’s exactly what he deserves– what else would he expect her to feel after everything he’s done? He wants to touch her, fix it, do _something_ , but she smacks his hand away. The hit is nothing, a brush of a feather at most, but it hurts.

“I’m trying to,” she whispers, and it's like a knife to the heart. Of course. He never gave her any reason to believe him in the first place. Still, it burns, and his wolf is torn.

It wants to chase after her retreating back and comfort her, but it also wants to give into the urge to destroy what can only be a leech trespassing on _their_ lands.

Against his best judgement, he takes a step toward Kendra anyway. The next howl stops him in his tracks, and he can feel it rattle his bones. It’s a direct order from Sam.

 **_Come_**.

Paul curses this leech’s impeccable timing. He resists for a few short seconds, trembling until his tendons go taut from the strain, but he ultimately gives in to relieve the pressure. He shouts into the dark skies with frustration and phases on the fly.

The pack mind is a flurry of chaotic thoughts when Paul joins the fray. Everyone is freaking out, and the jumble of everyone’s voices talking all at once would usually grate on his nerves, but the noise takes a backseat as he stares at the ground.

Among the shredded fabric of his clothes, the remnants of the bracelet are strewn about. The seashells are crushed, ground into dust.

He… he fucking destroyed it.

Everything he touches turns to ruin. He stares at it, blankly, and his silence is overlooked among the chaos in the pack mind.

Seth is chanting to himself, “ _What do I do, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do-_ ”

He was on the patrol shift with Quil, covering the other half of their usual circuit before all the madness began.

“ _Seth, you better not decide to do anything brave,_ ” Leah shouts.

“ _Holy SHIT, is that Leah I’m hearing?!_ ” 

The unfamiliar voice makes Paul stumble. A new wolf? And this one sounds _young_. How many _more_ kids were going to inevitably phase because of the leeches?

“ _Am I gonna be this way forever? What am I supposed to tell my mom?_ ”

Make that _two_ unfamiliar, childish voices.

“ _I am_ not _a child! I turned fifteen last month!_ ”

Paul shudders. That didn’t make it any better.

“ _Oh my god, what is that smell?_ ”

“ _I thought this was supposed to be a relaxing Saturday, but nooo._ ”

“ _Can somebody come HELP ME? PLEASE?_ ”

“ _SHE’S GETTING AWAY!_ ”

Quil’s anxious shriek makes Paul concentrate on the his thoughts instead. He’s running along the southwest border of the reservation. Alone. His nostrils and head are clouded with the scent of burnt sugar and cyanide, like death doused in perfume.

Orange hair, coily and bright, sweeps through the air like a shifting inferno. It turns, slowly, and glowing red eyes narrow on Quil as bloodied lips lift in a snarl around a mouthful of a severed arm. Quil screams and dodges out of the way when the leech tosses the severed arm in his direction, and a feminine laughter carries on the wind like a sick echo of an innocent young girl’s.

Everyone reels at the image.

Victoria.

“ _Fucking evil BITCH!_ ”

“ _This isn’t real, this isn’t real, this isn’t real!_ ”

“ _She_ ate _somebody!_ ” 

“ _Kill it! Just fucking kill it!_ ”

“ ** _Quiet!_** ”

Sam’s loud command swallows everyone’s thoughts into silence, but the anxiety laced in the mind-link is still just as loud.

“ _Get. It. Together_. _We’ve done this before. You all know the drill,_ ” Sam breathes. “ ** _Quil, keep your eyes on her but don’t engage until we’re closer to you. Leah, stay with Seth. Jacob, you cover the pups until Embry can take over. Then you’re in the front with me. Everyone one else, haul your asses over here so we can flank Quil. Got it?_** ”

That earns him a collective ‘yes’ and the wolves scramble to do as they’re told. Paul breaks into a run on four legs, feeling like a marionette on strings under Sam’s command.

“ _And you_ ,” Sam grumbles, turning his attention to Paul. “ _What the hell took you so long to join?_ ”

Paul recovers from his daze and bristles when the words register in his brain; the almighty alpha always has time to pick on him. He doesn’t respond, but his memories do all the talking for him. The entire pack gets front row seats to the kiss he shared with Kendra in the rain just moments before.

They _all_ feel how her touch warmed every crevice of him, how the weight of her in his arms was too perfect. How her tears against his sweater skewered his heart. How those black eyes of hers stunned him like a defibrillator. How he was struck with fear at the inkling of hope that bloomed in his chest when she told him the bite didn’t matter to her.

Jared whistles, already going with the assumption that Paul just had sex in the woods with his imprint. “ _Woah-ho-ho! I didn’t take you for an exhibititonist kind of guy, but okay, man._ ”

“ _See, Jacob? Even Paul can’t resist,_ ” Sam says smugly. “ _It’s only a matter of time for you.”_

Paul snaps at him before Jacob can respond. “ _Shut the fuck up, Sam! It’s none of your business. It’s nobody’s fucking business!_ ”

“ _Is that any way to talk to your alpha?”_ Sam asks slowly. “ _Is it?_ ”

Paul’s answering snarl is loud and bone-chilling, and a wave of discomfort washes over the pack as the two argue. They all clam up as Paul finally catches up with the group and comes to a halt in front of Sam to block his running path, showing his teeth to the black wolf that towers over him by an inch.

“ _How long are you gonna keep this up, Sam?_ ” Paul hisses.

Sam growls back, “ _Keep_ what _up?_ ”

“ _Your games!_ ”

“ _UM, GUYS, THERE IS A VAMPIRE_ ,” Quil shouts. He’s freaking out being so close to the danger all by himself. “ _MAYBE WE CAN DO THIS MACHO CONTEST, I DON'T KNOW, LATER?_ ”

Sam shoves past Paul and continues running toward Quil. Paul follows after him, full of hatred, and that rage bubbles up in the undertone of his thoughts that makes his mind full of static noise. He keeps his head down and focuses on the chase, pushing himself until he’s in the lead with Sam and Jared. 

The trio take point as Quil, who breathes a huge sigh of relief, falls back, and the rest of the pack run behind them in a loose diamond formation. Jacob eventually makes it to the front, and the four best fighters of the pack act as both a shield and offense against Victoria.

They each take turns lunging and snapping at Victoria running ahead of them, only managing to snag their teeth on her flowing curls or a stray piece of clothing. She hisses at them in outrage each time, but she never stops running. 

The chase gets closer and closer to the ancient treaty lines, where the scent of vampire is a concentrated and stifling miasma. The newest boys, still so new to their freshly transformed bodies and the heightened senses that come with it, lurch at the cloying scent. It ramps up their prey drive tenfold, and they struggle with the sudden surge of protectiveness and fury emitting from their wolves. Their distressed whimpering and wailing fill the pack mind.

“ _Ugh, why is that smell so strong?_ ”

“ _I-I hate it! Make it stop!_ ”

“ _I wanna kill it!_ ”

Their cries throw everyone off track, muddling strategic thought into disorder, and it gives Victoria the opening she needs to leap over the invisible boundary line into Cullen territory. The pack collectively howls in frustration.

“ ** _Calm down, you two_** ,” Sam orders them. Their restlessness immediately lightens up, but it’s like putting a bandaid on a broken leg. 

Victoria turns her head to grin at them, and it’s all bloodied teeth and cockiness. She weaves back and forth over the boundary line, dancing just out of reach into Cullen territory when one of the wolves gets too close. Her grin widens when she abandons running to climb up a spruce and hop from tree to tree. 

The pack can do nothing but turn up their noses to the skies, snarling and barking threats at her. A wolf is only good against prey on the ground; once a vampire is airborne or seabound they instantly become out of reach, and the wolves are sitting ducks until the next opportunity on land strikes. 

Victoria laughs, likely catching on to this predicament, as she begins to do elaborate flips and spins with each leap like a fucking gymnast. Resentment ignites in Paul over their helplessness in this chase, and it makes him want to scream and destroy. He has half a mind phase back so he can climb a tree and snatch her from the trees himself.

“ _She’s fucking playing with us_ ,” Paul spits. They’re _protectors_ , and they’re doing a shit job at it. The pack grumbles with indignation at his words.

The sweet scent becomes more poignant, along with the scent of animal blood. Victoria looks over her shoulder mid-leap and hisses in irritation. Seconds later the Cullens appear, running parallel to the pack on their side of the line. They look like statues running in designer clothes. Any other day, it would’ve been a hilarious sight.

It’s the blood splattered all over their clothes, hands, and mouths that floors the pack from laughter. Their eyes are honey gold, and beneath their unpleasant scent is the vegetal scent of deer blood coursing through their bodies, but it’s still a shocking sight. The sight of _more_ vampires, the onslaught of their pungent smell, and the mere thought of a dangerous threat so close to home– _that already killed one of their own_ – throws _everyone_ into an explosive frenzy, including Sam.

The brawniest of the Cullens ferociously kicks at the tree the redhead was leaping toward, and the trunk splits under his foot. Victoria shrieks as she crashes along with the tree onto Quileute ground. The pack descends on her in a craze as she scrambles to her feet.

Paul is the first to latch onto her, digging his teeth into her shoulder. She screams like a wild banshee and bucks against the ground, kicking Jared away as he comes in behind Paul to take another bite out of her. She manages to wrench her shoulder out of Paul’s death grip, kicking up dirt behind her as she runs with a chunk missing from her shoulder. 

Spitting out the granite chunk, Paul chases after her with renewed vigor. Now that he’s gotten a taste, like a shark with blood in the water, he’s not planning on letting her go until she’s deader than dead. He’s on a warpath now. The rest of the pack feeds into his livid energy, collectively and solely focused on _kill, kill, kill._ Like a vicious cycle, Paul in turn feeds into the pack’s killing intent and his mind tumbles with it into a funnel uncontrollable rage.

The Cullens are saying _something_ , but Paul can’t hear them. He can barely hear a thing anymore, as if he were underwater. When his eyes manage to leave Victoria’s fiery hair and swivel over to them… yellow-eyed or not, all Paul can see is a coven of disgusting leeches. There’s no distinction between the two anymore. They are simply an enemy. A _threat_ , just like the redheaded one in front of them. 

There’s no way they can let that demon get away. They _need_ this kill. _Paul_ needs this kill. He’s practically foaming at the mouth for the chance to sink his teeth into a vampire or _something_ , to prove he’s not a failure. He is _not_ a sitting duck. This is the one thing he _can_ do right, and this is his job. His one job that gave him a new purpose, that made him forget how much of a disappointment he could be- 

> _Kendra was fruitlessly searching for him in the crowd after being announced the winner of the design competition, having just won the scholarship to her dream school. Her hair whipped back and forth as she scanned every face with hopeful eyes. She came up empty, just like Paul made sure she would. The lack of his presence upsets her, and this naturally upsets him, too._
> 
> _Kendra jumped off the stage and walked sullenly to her grandmother, ignoring the congratulations and pats on the pack from the crowd as she passed them._
> 
> _“I thought… I thought he would come,” Kendra mumbled to her feet._
> 
> _Diana pet her hair and pulled her granddaughter closer. “I’m so sorry sweetheart.”_
> 
> _Kendra cried, and Paul ached. He ached because he_ was _there, hidden in the shadows, not to be seen or heard. But he was determined to watch her on one of the most important days of her life._
> 
> _Of course she would want him there. This was personal to her. He didn’t want to disappoint Kendra, but she couldn’t see him, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. So he stood in the back, helpless–_

“ _Paul! Get it together!_ ” Leah snaps.

Paul rears out of his old memories with a shake of his head, pinning his eyes on the redhead again as he tries to drown everything else out. But the scent of a vampire burns irritates all of his senses, and the frenzied thoughts and heightened emotion of the pack is suffocating. 

“ _Don’t let her get away!_ ”

The shout frays Paul’s nerves even more, and goes under again.

> _Kendra squeezed Leah in a hug before she stepped into the car. Only the back of her head was visible as the car pulled off. Paul chased, hidden in the underbrush of the forest that lined the highway as the car drove down the road._
> 
> _He ran until he didn’t have any more cover, skidding to a halt. He kept his eye on the car as it disappeared down the road until it became a pinprick in the distance, and Kendra’s scent on the wind faded away with it. An endless roaring plagued his ears._
> 
> _Once again, there was nothing for Paul to do. He could only watch as the girl of his dreams disappeared forever, and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Again. He hated every second of it._
> 
> _Paul whimpered, pawing despairingly at the dirt beneath his paw. He threw his head back to howl._
> 
> _Not fair, not fair, not fair, not fair, not FAIR, NOT FAIR, NOT FAIR-_

A hair raising sensation pulls Paul back to the present, and he freezes. The brawny one with the yellow eyes lunges for the redhead, misses, and _staggers over the treaty line_.

Paul stops breathing as his hackles raise and his eyes zero in on the leech. And from the sudden silence of the rest of the pack they must be holding their breath, too. The silence is oppressive, and Paul suffocates with it.

The tall blonde with the scarf, their leader, holds up placating hands and is saying something, but it’s all a silent movie to Paul. From reading his lips Paul can vaguely make out “accident” and “misunderstanding” and “please,” but Paul rips his eyes away as the brawny one begins to slowly stand up. The redhead is nowhere to be found.

They fucking _lost_ her. _Again_.

Another vampire too close to home that slipped through their fingers, killing _one of their people_ … and putting Kendra in danger because Paul can’t do his fucking job right. 

Redness bleeds into his vision, and the tatters of whatever is left of Paul’s right mind is flushed out.

One minute he’s in control, and the next… he’s thrown into the backseat as his wolf instincts take center stage. It’s an odd sensation, as if he’s been kicked out of his own body. He sits in a pool of nothingness, blind, but he can _hear_ shouts and growling around him. 

Paul doesn’t understand a word of it. It’s like listening to voices underwater.

His wolf lunges for the vampire breaching its territory. The vampire holds the wolf by its shoulders, throwing his head left and right as the wolf chomps its teeth in his face. The vampire kicks it away and slithers back to his side of the border, and a blonde female curls her teeth at the wolf.

The gesture only makes Paul’s wolf want to chase even more. It lunges forward again, but its joints lock under words laced with an order. The wolf struggles against it, forcing itself to move one step at a time until bones creak and muscles tear with the effort.

Several teeth lock into different limbs to keep it from going forward, but it’s the teeth at the scruff of the wolf’s neck that successfully yanks him backwards. His wolf bristles at the act of the domination, and it outright snarls when it realizes the offender is Sam. Sam barks something, but his wolf is still beyond understanding words, even the ones swimming around the pack mind.

The grating voice of one of the leeches reaches its ears, and the wolf turns to snap at the voice. Sam grabs its scruff again and yanks it back several feet. He bodily pushes the wolf further away, and the rest of the pack backs away with them.

The wolf keeps trying to sneak past Sam toward the group of yellow-eyed leeches retreating past the trees. Sam slams order after order on the wolf, and it bites at the empty air in front of Sam. Its saliva takes on a sour tang as foam drips from its muzzle.

Sam opens his jaws to say something else, and Paul is abruptly launched back into the driver’s seat of his body. Still, everything is bathed in red.

“ _YOU ARE NOT MY ALPHA,_ ” he roars. The mind-link falls into a hush. “ _You’re nothing… but a liar._ ”

His mind quiets, and suddenly, a flood of memories bursts forth. It’s a strain, and a migraine begins to pound in his skull as he shows the pack _everything_ he’s seen and heard, against Sam's orders not to.

> _Sam proposed to Leah at her graduation party. As he rose from his knees Emily looked up, and her eyes locked with his. He was immediately enchanted by her eyes, by her soul. He was overcome with a sense of deja vu, but… that’s it._
> 
> _The elders were wrong about imprinting, but not in the way he expected. It’s utterly boring. Vanilla. Sam was hoping for something more, like a grand awakening of love. He wanted the universe to tell him something more profound… He wanted the universe to tell him that Emily, the woman he secretly coveted since he met her, was the one for him._
> 
> _He had to make her his, and now he had the perfect excuse to use to his advantage. There were no known rules to imprinting, only the assumptions made from Paul's impulsive biting of his imprint that bound her to him without realizing what it meant. Who could correct him, if Sam were to twist things to his own advantage? That same day he told Emily he loved her. Not a word of it was true._

Sam barks orders to silence the influx of memories, and Paul yips and buckles under the pressure but he doesn’t give in. The blood in his veins sizzle like acid as he overheats, and his bones crunch under the pressure of defying a direct order.

> _Sam let his mind wander, thinking of how he masterfully puppeteered everyone to get him exactly where he wanted. Paul phases earlier than planned to relieve him of his patrol shift, and catches everything._
> 
> _Sam balked. No. NO._
> 
> _Paul would reveal his secret, and all of his dreams, everything he worked so hard for, would crumble before his very eyes. His subordinates would turn against him. The Council would punish him. Emily could leave him._
> 
> _He couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t. He’s Alpha._
> 
> “ ** _Paul_** _,” he breathed. Paul yowled and thrashed at the commanding tone._ “ ** _You won’t breathe a word about what you saw to anyone. Ever. If anyone so much as asks or wonders, you’ll keep your mouth shut_**.”
> 
> “ _You bastard! Fuck you and your Alpha status-”_
> 
> “ ** _Don’t speak until Jared relieves you of patrol. Go now_**. _”_
> 
> _Paul abruptly spun around and ran in the opposite direction under Sam's command._

But not anymore.

Finally, it comes to blows when Sam realizes the orders will get him nowhere. The pack mind is discombobulated, everyone screaming different things and reeling from what they just witnessed. They all cringe at what they’re witnessing _now_. 

Paul’s wolf snarls in anticipation. They snap and dig their teeth into each other, drawing blood and ripping out tufts of fur. Sam is just as ferocious as Paul, relentless in his attacks and determined to restore his law again.

“ _You think you got all your bases covered, huh, Sam?_ ” Paul goads him. “ _You thought you could keep this shit up forever? You’re fucking finished. Your law is done._ ”

Sam becomes incensed at that, bucking Paul from his back and snapping out his back leg in Paul’s muzzle. Paul hears the crack before he feels it. An abrupt, sharp pain courses through his jawbone all the way up to his temple, and if he were human now we would grab his face. He slowly turns his head to face Sam again, working his jaw. It won’t close properly, and the bones make a gruesome crunch in his ear. 

Paul laughs, and it comes out like a hollow cough from the wolf’s muzzle. He ignores how his jaw painfully jostles and lunges for Sam again.

“ _You think I've never been hit before?_ ” Paul sneers. His father had done it plenty of times in a drunken stupor. This? This was child’s play compared to that. 

Even as Sam overpowers him and sinks his teeth into his neck, applying pressure until Paul begins to suffocate and his red vision turns darker, it’s still nothing. Paul finds the entire situation funny. A garbled wheeze comes from the wolf but his head is filled with a loud, demented laughter. 

“ _I can do this all day. All fucking day!_ ” He jerks and yowls when Sam bites down even harder, tearing up his neck even worse. Paul can feel rivulets of blood running down his shoulders and matting his fur.

“ _JACOB, FUCKING DO SOMETHING!_ ” someone screams. Leah, Paul can only guess.

The rest of the pack chimes in and begs Sam to stop, but he ignores them all.

“ ** _Nobody is going to do_ anything**,” Sam growls.

The pack growls in resentment at the order, but Jacob is the loudest. As Paul’s field of vision shifts to a pinprick all at once, the space that Jacob’s mind once held in the pack mind… disappears.

Everyone sucks in a sharp breath at sudden drop, and even Paul shudders at the loss. It makes him feel sick. Sam’s canines freeze from mauling Paul’s neck and his attention turns to Jacob. 

Jacob is standing among the rest of the pack. He’s still standing _right there_ , but his thoughts are _gone_. Jacob blinks as if he’s in disbelief himself.

“ _What is this, Jacob?! What the hell have you done?_ ” Sam shouts. “ _I’m alpha! Not you–_ ”

Sam immediately releases Paul, and he falls to the ground in a heap. He growls, but it sounds like he’s gargling. He hacks once and blood splashes against the grass. 

Paul’s body really refuses to cooperate with him now. No matter how much he wants to lunge at Sam’s retreating back, his body won’t move. Jacob approaches Sam, ears low and teeth bared, and Paul huffs with laughter. So Jacob finally grew some balls, huh?

“ _Fucking… blue blood…_ ” Paul chokes out.

The rest of Paul’s vision tunnels, and he slips into a red oblivion. He’s briefly roused by that scent, _her_ scent, and it’s the only thing that gets his legs moving again. He staggers around on pure instinct toward his favorite scent, the one he could pick out from miles away.

Everything was blurry and far away sounding, but the world only had a pink tinge now. He walks until his body doesn’t want to hold up anymore, and he falls into a warm embrace made of cotton candy.

“Shhh… I’m here. I’m right here…” It’s his favorite voice, coated in confection and comfort, and it’s music to his ears.

Paul sinks further into the bed of honeycomb and apricots, and drifts into a more peaceful silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love block quotes :)
> 
> Please leave a comment/kudos if you like!


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